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!OTHERS 



-4IV 




HISTORY 



OF 



KING CHARLES THE FIRST 



ENGLAND. 



BY JACOB ABBOTT. 



SWftJ 3En,sratiiit0S. 

NEW YORK: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

82 CLIFF STREET. 



Co py 2. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand 
eight hundred and forty-eight, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District 
of New York. 



,THE LIBRARY 
Of CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



2./^ 



PREFACE. 



The history of the life of every individual 
who has, for any reason, attracted extensively 
the attention of mankind, has been written in 
a great variety of ways by a multitude of au- 
thors, and persons sometimes wonder why we 
should have so many different accounts of the 
same thing. The reason is, that each one of 
these accounts is intended for a different set of 
readers, who read with ideas and purposes wide- 
ly dissimilar from each other. Among the 
twenty millions of people in the United States, 
there are perhaps two millions, between the ages 
of fifteen and twenty-five, who wish to become 
acquainted, in general, with the leading events 
in the history of the Old World, and of ancient 
times, but who, coming upon the stage in this 
land and at this period, have ideas and concep- 
tions so widely different from those of other na- 
tions and of other times, that a mere republica- 



vi Preface. 

tion of existing accounts is not what they re- 
quire. The story must be told expressly for 
them. The things that are to be explained, 
the points that are to be brought out, the com- 
parative degree of prominence to be given to 
the various particulars, will all be different, on 
account of the difference in the situation, the 
ideas, and the objects of these new readers, 
compared with those of the various other classes 
of readers which former authors have had in 
view. It is for this reason, and with this view, 
that the present series of historical narratives is 
presented to the public. The author, having 
had some opportunity to become acquainted 
with the position, the ideas, and the intellect- 
ual wants of those whom he addresses, presents 
the result of his labors to them, with the hope 
that it may be found successful in accomplish- 
ing its design. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

I. HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 13 

II. THE EXPEDITION INTO SPAIN 34 

III. ACCESSION TO THE THRONE 58 

IV. BUCKINGHAM 81 

V. THE KING AND HIS PREROGATIVE 107 

VI. ARCHBISHOP LAUD 131 

VII. THE EARL OF STRAFFORD 155 

VIII. DOWNFALL OF STRAFFORD AND LAUD 177 

IX. CIVIL WAR 203 

X. THE CAPTIVITY 234 

XI. TRIAL AND DEATH 261 



ENGRAVINGS. 



Pago 

portrait of hampden Frontispiece. 

ILLUMINATED TITLE 

i- TOWER OF LONDON 1 

, charles i. and armor bearer. 10 

l queen henrietta maria 11 

windsor castle 22 

^ the escurial 55 

st. Stephen's 76 

lambeth palace 133 

westminster hall 187 

strafford and laud 199 

the king's adherents entering york 221 

the landing of the queen 228 

NEWARK 236 

CARISBROOKE CASTLE 254 

RUINS OF CARISBROOKE CASTLE 265 




Charles I. and Armor Bearer. 



■iltti i,ki 



iSik* 




Queen Henrietta Maria. 



KING CHARLES I, 

Chapter I. 
His Childhood and Youth. 

Born in Scotland. The circumstance explained 

KING CHARLES THE FIRST was born 
in Scotland. It may perhaps surprise 
the reader that an English king should be born 
in Scotland. The explanation is this : 

They who have read the history of Mary 
Queen of Scots, will remember that it was the 
great end and aim of her life to unite the 
crowns of England and Scotland in her own 
family. Queen Elizabeth was then Queen 
of England. She lived and died unmarried. 
Queen Mary and a young man named Lord 
Darnley were the next heirs. It was uncer- 
tain which of the two had the strongest claim. 
To prevent a dispute, by uniting these claims, 
Mary made Darnley her husband. They had 
a son, who, after the death of his father and 
mother, was acknowledged to be the heir to 
the English throne, whenever Elizabeth's life 

B 



14 King Charles I. [1600. 

Princess Anne. Royal marriages. 

should end. In the mean time he remained 
King of Scotland. His name was James. He 
married a princess of Denmark ; and his child, 
who afterward was King Charles the First of 
England, was born before he left his native 
realm. 

King Charles's mother was, as has been al- 
ready said, a princess of Denmark. Her name 
was Anne. The circumstances of her mar- 
riage to King James were quite extraordinary, 
and attracted great attention at the time. It 
is, in some sense, a matter of principle among 
kings and queens, that they must only marry 
persons of royal rank, like themselves ; and as 
they have very little opportunity of visiting each 
other, residing as they do in such distant capi- 
tals, they generally choose their consorts by the 
reports which come to them of the person and 
character of the different candidates. The 
choice, too, is very much influenced by politi- 
cal considerations, and is always more or less 
embarrassed by the interference of other courts, 
whose ministers make objections to this or that 
alliance, on account of its supposed interference 
with some of their own political schemes. 

As it is very inconvenient, moreover, for a 
king to leave his dominions, the marriage cere- 



1600.] His Childhood and Youth. Id 

Getting married by proxy. James thwarted. 

mony is usually performed at the court where 
the bride resides, without the presence of the 
bridegroom, he sending an embassador to act 
as his representative. This is called being 
married by proxy. The bride then comes to 
her royal husband's dominions, accompanied by 
a great escort. He meets her usually on the 
frontiers ; and there she sees him for the first 
time, after having been married to him some 
weeks by proxy. It is true, indeed, that she 
has generally seen his picture, that being usu- 
ally sent to her before the marriage contract is 
made. This, however, is not a matter of much 
consequence, as the personal predilections of a 
princess have generally very little to do with 
the question of her marriage. 

Now King James had concluded to propose 
for the oldest daughter of the King of Denmark, 
and he entered into negotiations for this pur- 
pose. This plan, however, did not please the 
government of England, and Elizabeth, who 
was then the English queen, managed so to 
embarrass and interfere with the scheme, that 
the King of Denmark gave his daughter to 
another claimant. James was a* man of very 
mild and quiet temperament, easily counter- 
acted and thwarted in his plans ; but this dis- 



16 King Charles I. [1600. 

James sues for Anne. Their marriage. 

appointment aroused his energies, and he sent 
a splendid embassy into Denmark to demand 
the king's second daughter, whose name was 
Anne. He prosecuted this suit so vigorously 
that the marriage articles were soon agreed to 
and signed. Anne embarked and set sail for 
Scotland. The king remained there, waiting 
for her arrival with great impatience. At 
length, instead of his bride, the news came that 
the fleet in which Anne had sailed had been 
dispersed and driven back by a storm, and that 
Anne herself had landed on the coast of Norway. 
James immediately conceived the design of 
going himself in pursuit of her. But knowing 
very well that all his ministers and the officers 
of his government would make endless objec- 
tions to his going out of the country on such 
an errand, he kept his plan a profound secret 
from them all. He ordered some ships to be 
got ready privately, and provided a suitable 
train of attendants, and then embarked with- 
out letting his people know where he was going. 
He sailed across the German Ocean to the 
town in Norway where his bride had landed. 
He found her there, and they were married. 
Her brother, who had just succeeded to the 
throne, having received intelligence of this, in- 



1600.] His Childhood and Youth. 17 

James in Copenhagen. Charles's feeble infancy. 

vited the young couple to come and spend the 
winter at his capital of Copenhagen; and as 
the season was far advanced, and the sea 
stormy, King James concluded to accept the 
invitation. They were received in Copenhagen 
with great pomp and parade, and the winter 
was spent in festivities and rejoicings. In the 
spring he brought his bride to Scotland. The 
whole world were astonished at the perform- 
ance of such an exploit by a king, especially 
one of so mild, quiet, and grave a character as 
that which James had the credit of possessing. 
Young Charles was very weak and feeble in 
his infancy. It was feared that he would not 
live many hours. The rite of baptism was im- 
mediately performed, as it was, in those days, 
considered essential to the salvation of a child 
dying in infancy that it should be baptized be- 
fore it died. Notwithstanding the fears that 
were at first felt, Charles lingered along for 
some days, and gradually began to acquire a 
little strength. His feebleness was a cause of 
great anxiety and concern to those around him ; 
but the degree of interest felt in the little suf- 
ferer's fate was very much less than it would 
have been if he had been the oldest son. He 
had a brother, Prince Henry, ? wfro was older 
2 B2 



18 King Charles I. [1600. 

Death of Elizabeth. Accession of James to the English crown. 

than he, and, consequently, heir to his father's 
crowns. It was not probable, therefore, that 
Charles would ever be king; and the import- 
ance of every thing connected with his birth 
and his welfare was very much diminished on 
that account. 

It was only about two years after Charles's 
birth that Queen Elizabeth died, and King 
James succeeded to the English throne. A 
messenger came with all speed to Scotland to 
announce the fact. He rode night and day. 
He arrived at the king's palace in the night. 
He gained admission to the king's chamber, 
and, kneeling at his bedside, proclaimed him 
King of England. James immediately pre- 
pared to bid his Scotch subjects farewell, and 
to proceed to England to take possession of his 
new realm. Queen Anne was to follow him 
in a week or two, and the other children, Henry 
and Elizabeth ; but Charles was too feeble to go. 

In those early days there was a prevailing 
belief in Scotland, and, in fact, the opinion still 
lingers there, that certain persons among the 
old Highlanders had what they called the gift 
of the second sight — that is, the power of fore- 
seeing futurity in some mysterious and incom- 
prehensible way. An incident is related its the 



1603.] His Childhood and Youth. 19 

Second sight. Prediction fulfilled. 

old histories connected with Charles's infancy, 
which is a good illustration of this. While 
King James was preparing to leave Scotland, 
to take possession of the English throne, an old 
Highland laird came to bid him farewell. He 
gave the king many parting counsels and good 
wishes, and then, overlooking the older brother, 
Prince Henry, he went directly to Charles, who 
was then about two years old, and bowed be- 
fore him, and kissed his hand with the greatest 
appearance of regard and veneration. King 
James undertook to correct his supposed mis- 
take, by telling him that that was his second 
son, and that the other boy was the heir to the 
crown. " No," said the old laird, " I am not 
mistaken. I know to whom I am speaking. 
This child, now in his nurse's arms, will be 
greater than his brother. This is the one who 
is to convey his father's name and titles to suc- 
ceeding generations." This prediction was ful- 
filled ; for the robust and healthy Henry died, 
and the feeble and sickly-looking Charles lived 
and grew, and succeeded, in due time, to his 
father's throne. 

Now inasmuch as, at the time when this 
prediction was uttered, there seemed to be little 
human probability of its fulfillment, it attracted 



20 King Charles I. [1603. 

An explanation. Charles's titles of nobility. 

attention ; its unexpected and startling charac- 
ter made every one notice and remember it; 
and the old laird was at once an object of inter- 
est and wonder. It is probable that this desire 
to excite the admiration of the auditors, mingled 
insensibly with a sort of poetic enthusiasm, 
which a rude age and mountainous scenery al- 
ways inspires, was the origin of a great many 
such predictions as these ; and then, in the end, 
those only which turned out to be true were 
remembered, while the rest were forgotten ; and 
this was the way that the reality of such pro- 
phetic powers came to be generally believed in. 

Feeble and uncertain of life as the infant 
Charles appeared to be, they conferred upon 
him, as is customary in the case of young prin- 
ces, various titles of nobility. He was made a 
duke, a marquis, an earl, and a baron, before 
he had strength enough to lift up his head in 
his nurse's arms. His title as duke was Duke 
of Albany ; and as this was the highest of his 
nominal honors, he was generally known under 
that designation while he remained in Scotland. 

When his father left him, in order to go to 
England and take possession of his new throne, 
he appointed a governess to take charge of the 
health and education of the young duke. This 



1603.] His Childhood and Youth. 23 

Charles's governess. Windsor Castle. 

governess was Lady Gary. The reason why 
she was appointed was, not because of her pos- 
sessing any peculiar qualifications for such a 
charge, but because her husband, Sir Robert 
Cary, had been the messenger employed by the 
British government to communicate to James 
the death of Elizabeth, and to announce to him 
his accession to the throne. The bearer of 
good news to a monarch must always be re- 
warded, and James recompensed Sir Robert for 
his service by appointing his wife to the post of 
governess of his infant son. The office un- 
doubtedly had its honors and emoluments, with 
very little of responsibility or care. 

One of the chief residences of the English 
monarchs is Windsor Castle. It is situated 
above London, on the Thames, on the southern 
shore. It is on an eminence overlooking the 
river and the delightful valley through which 
the river here meanders. In the rear is a very 
extensive park or forest, which is penetrated in 
every direction by rides and walks almost innu- 
merable. It has been for a long time the chief 
country residence of the British kings. It is 
very spacious, containing within its walls many 
courts and quadrangles, with various buildings 
surrounding them, some ancient and some mod- 



24 King Charles I. [1610. 

Journey to London. A mother's love. Rejoicings. 

ern. Here King James held his court after his 
arrival in England, and in about a year he sent 
for the little Charles to join him. 

The child traveled very slowly, and by very 
easy stages, his nurses and attendants watch- 
ing over him with great solicitude all the way. 
The journey was made in the month of October. 
His mother watched his arrival with great in- 
terest. Being so feeble and helpless, he was, of 
course, her favorite child. By an instinct which 
very strongly evinces the wisdom and goodness 
which implanted it, a mother always bestows 
a double portion of her love upon the frail, the 
helpless, and the suffering. Instead of being 
wearied out with protracted and incessant calls 
for watchfulness and care, she feels only a deep- 
er sympathy and love, in proportion to the in- 
firmities which call for them, and thus finds 
her highest happiness in what we might expect 
would be a weariness and a toil. 

Little Charles was four years old when he 
reached Windsor Castle. They celebrated his 
arrival with great rejoicings, and a day or two 
afterward they invested him with the title of 
Duke of York, a still higher distinction than he 
had before attained. Soon after this, when he 
was perhaps five or six years of age, a gentle- 



1610.] His Childhood and Youth. 25 

Charles's continued feebleness. His progress in learning. 

man was appointed to take the charge of his 
education. His health gradually improved, 
though he still continued helpless and feeble. 
It was a long time before he could walk, on ac- 
count of some malformation of his limbs. He 
learned to talk, too, very late and very slowly. 
Besides the general feebleness of his constitu- 
tion, which kept him back in ail these things, 
there was an impediment in his speech, which 
affected him very much in childhood, and which, 
in fact, never entirely disappeared. 

As soon, however, as he commenced his stud- 
ies under his new tutor, he made much great- 
er progress than had been expected. It was 
soon observed that the feebleness which had 
attached to him pertained more to the body 
than to the mind. He advanced with consid- 
erable rapidity in his learning. His progress 
was, in fact, in some degree, promoted by his 
bodily infirmities, which kept him from playing 
with the other boys of the court, and led him 
to like to be still, and to retire from scenes of 
sport and pleasure which he could not share. 

The same cause operated to make him not 
agreeable as a companion, and he was not a 
favorite among those around him. They call- 
ed him Baby Charley. His temper seemed to 

C 



26 King Charles I. [1616. 

Charle3 improves in health. Death of hie brother. 

be in some sense soured by the feeling of his in- 
feriority, and by the jealousy he would natural- 
ly experience in finding himself, the son of a 
king, so outstripped in athletic sports by those 
whom he regarded as his inferiors in rank and 
station. 

The lapse of a few years, however, after this 
time, made a total change in Charles's position 
and prospects. His health improved, and his 
constitution began to be confirmed and estab- 
lished. "When he was about twelve years of 
age, too, his brother Henry died. This circum- 
stance made an entire change in all his pros- 
pects of life. The eyes of the whole kingdom, 
and, in fact, of all Europe, were now upon him 
as the future sovereign of England. His sister 
Elizabeth, who was a few years older than him- 
self, was, about this time, married to a Ger- 
man prince, with great pomp and ceremony, 
young Charles acting the part of brideman. 
In consequence of his new position as heir-ap- 
parent to the throne, he was advanced to new 
honors, and had new titles conferred upon him, 
until at last, when he was sixteen years of age, 
he was made Prince of Wales, and certain rev- 
enues were appropriated to support a court for 
him, that he might be surrounded with external 



1618.] His Childhood and \ outh. 27 

Charles's love of athletic sports. Buckingham. 

circumstances and insignia of rank and power, 
corresponding with his prospective greatness. 

In the mean time his health and strength 
rapidly improved, and with the improvement 
came a taste for manly and athletic sports, and 
the attainment of excellence in them. He be- 
came very famous for his skill in all the exploits 
and performances of the young men of those 
days, such as shooting, riding, vaulting, and 
tilting at tournaments. From being a weak, 
sickly, and almost helpless child, he became, at 
twenty, an active, athletic young man, full of 
life and spirit, and ready for any romantic en- 
terprise. In fact, when he was twenty-three 
years old, he embarked in a romantic enter- 
prise which attracted the attention of all the 
world. This enterprise will presently be de- 
scribed. 

There was at this time, in the court of King 
James, a man who became very famous after- 
ward as a favorite and follower of Charles. He 
is known in history under the name of the 
Duke of Buckingham. His name was origin- 
ally George Villiers. He was a very hand- 
some young man, and he seems to have attract- 
ed King James's attention at first on this ac- 
count. James found him a convenient attend- 



28 King Charles I. [1618. 

Buckingham's style of living. Royalty. 



ant, and made him, at last, his principal favor- 
ite. He raised him to a high rank, and con- 
ferred upon him, among other titles, that of 
Duke of Buckingham. The other persons 
about the court were very envious and jealous 
of his influence and power ; but they were 
obliged to submit to it. He lived in great 
state and splendor, and for many years was 
looked up to by the whole kingdom as one of 
the greatest personages in the realm. We 
shall learn hereafter how he came to his end. 

If the reader imagines, from the accounts 
which have been given thus far in this chapter 
of the pomp and parade of royalty, of the cas- 
tles and the ceremonies, the titles of nobility 
and the various insignia of rank and power, 
which we have alluded to so often, that the 
mode of life which royalty led in those days 
was lofty, dignified, and truly great, he will be 
very greatly deceived. All these things were 
merely for show — things put on for public dis- 
play, to gratify pride and impress the people, 
who never looked behind the scenes, with high 
ideas of the grandeur of those who, as they 
were taught, ruled over them by a divine right. 
It would be hard to find, in any class of society 
except those reputed infamous, more low, gross, 



1620.] His Childhood and Youth. 29 

True character of royalty. The king and Buckingham. 

and vulgar modes of life than have been ex- 
hibited generally in the royal palaces of Europe 
for the last five hundred years. King James 
the First has, among English sovereigns, rath- 
er a high character for sobriety and gravity of 
deportment, and purity of morals ; but the 
glimpses we get of the real, every-day routine 
of his domestic life, are such as to show that 
the pomp and parade of royalty is mere glitter- 
ing tinsel, after all. 

The historians of the day tell such stories as 
these. The king was at one time very de- 
jected and melancholy, when Buckingham con- 
trived this plan to amuse him. In the first 
place, however, we ought to say, in order to il- 
lustrate the terms on which he and Bucking- 
ham lived together, that the king always called 
Buckingham Steeny, which was a contraction 
of Stephen. St. Stephen was always repre- 
sented, in the Catholic pictures of the saints, as 
a very handsome man, and Buckingham being 
handsome too, James called him Steeny by way 
of compliment. Steeny called the king his dad, 
and used to sign himself, in his letters, " your 
slave and dog Steeny." There are extant some 
letters which passed between the king and his 
favorite, written, on the part of the king, in a 

C2 



30 King Charles I. [1620. 

Indecent correspondence. Buckingham's pig. 

style of grossness and indecency such that the 
chroniclers of those days said that they were 
not fit to be printed. They would not "blot 
their pages" with them, they said. King 
Charles's letters were more properly expressed. 

To return, then, to our story. The king was 
very much dejected and melancholy. Steeny, 
in order to divert him, had a pig dressed up in 
the clothes of an infant child. Buckingham's 
mother, who was a countess, personated the 
nurse, dressed also carefully for the occasion. 
Another person put on a bishop's robes, satin 
gown, lawn sleeves, and the other pontifical 
ornaments. They also provided a baptismal 
font, a prayer-book, and other things necessary 
for a religious ceremony, and then invited the 
king to come in to attend a baptism. The 
king came, and the pretended bishop began to 
read the service, the assistants looking gravely 
on, until the squealing of the pig brought all 
gravity to an end. The king was not pleased ; 
but the historian thinks the reason was, not 
any objection which he had to such a profana- 
tion, but to his not happening to be in a mood 
for it at that time. 

There was a negotiation going on for a long 
time for a marriage between one of the king's 



1620.] His Childhood and Youth. 31 

James's petulance. The story of Gib. 

sons, first Henry, and afterward Charles, and a 
princess of Spain. At one time the king lost 
some of the papers, and was storming about the 
palace in a great rage because he could not 
find them. At last he chanced to meet a cer- 
tain Scotchman, a servant of his, named Gib, 
and, like a vexed and impatient child, who lays 
the charge of a lost plaything upon any body 
who happens to be at hand to receive it, he put 
the responsibility of the loss of the papers upon 
Gib. "I remember," said he, "I gave them 
to you to take care of. What have you done 
with them?" The faithful servant fell upon 
his knees, and protested that he had not re- 
ceived them. The king was only made the 
more angry by this contradiction, and kicked 
the Scotchman as he kneeled upon the floor. 
The man rose and left the apartment, saying, 
"I have always been faithful to your majesty, 
and have not deserved such treatment as this. 
I can not remain in your service under such a 
degradation. T shall never see you again." 
He left the palace, and went away. 

A short time after this, the person to whose 
custody the king had really committed the pa- 
pers came in, and, on learning that they were 
wanted, produced them. The king was asham- 



32 King Charles I. [1620. 

The king's frankness. Glitter of royalty. 

ed of his conduct. He sent for his Scotch serv- 
ant again, and was not easy until he was found 
and brought into his presence. He then kneel- 
ed before him and asked his forgiveness, and 
said he should not rise till he had forgiven him. 
Gib was disposed to evade the request, and 
urged the king to rise ; but James would not 
do so until he had said he forgave him, in so 
many words. The whole case shows how little 
of dignity and noble bearing there really was 
in the manners and conduct of the king in his 
daily life, though we are almost ready to over- 
look the ridiculous childishness and folly of his 
fault, on account of the truly noble frankness 
and honesty with which he acknowledged it. 

Thus, though every thing in which royalty 
appeared before the public was conducted with 
great pomp and parade, this external magnifi- 
cence was then, and always has been, an out- 
side show, without any thing corresponding to 
it within. The great mass of the people of 
England saw only the outside. They gazed 
with admiration at the spectacle of magnifi- 
cence and splendor which royalty always pre- 
sented to their eyes, whenever they beheld it 
from the distant and humble points of view 
which their position afforded them. Prince 



1622.] His Childhood and Youth. 33 

The appearance. The reality. 

Charles, on the other hand, was behind the cur- 
tain. His childhood and youth were exposed 
fully to all the real influences of these scenes. 
The people of England submitted to be govern- 
ed by such men, not because they thought them 
qualified to govern, or that the circumstances 
under which their characters were formed were 
such as were calculated to form, in a proper man- 
ner, the minds of the rulers of a Christian people. 
They did not know what those circumstances 
were. In their conceptions they had grand ideas 
of royal character and life, and imagined the 
splendid palaces which some saw, but more only 
heard of, at Westminster, were filled with true 
greatness and glory. They were really filled 
with vulgarity, vice, and shame. James was to 
them King James the First, monarch of Great 
Britain, France, and Ireland, and Charles was 
Charles, Prince of Wales, Duke of York, and 
heir-apparent to the throne. Whereas, within 
the palace, to all who saw them and knew them 
there, and really, so far as their true moral po- 
sition was concerned, the father was " Old 
Dad," and the son, what his father always 
called him till he was twenty-four years old, 

" Baby Charley." 
3 



34 King Charles I. [1623. 

The Palatinate. Wars between the Protestants and Catholics. 



Chapter II. 

The Expedition into Spain. 

|~N order that the reader may understand 
-*- fully the nature of the romantic enterprise 
in which, as we have already said, Prince 
Charles embarked when he was a little over 
twenty years of age, we must premise that 
Frederic, the German prince who married 
Charles's sister Elizabeth some years before, 
was the ruler of a country in Germany called 
the Palatinate. It was on the banks of the 
Rhine. Frederic's title, as ruler of this coun- 
try, was Elector Palatine. There are a great 
many independent states in Germany, whose 
sovereigns have various titles, and are possessed 
of various prerogatives and powers. 

Now it happened that, at this time, very 
fierce civil wars were raging between the Cath- 
olics and the Protestants in Germany. Fred- 
eric got drawn into these wars on the Protest- 
ant side. His motive was not any desire to 
promote the progress of what he considered the 
true faith, but only a wish to extend his own 



1623.] The Expedition into Spain. 35 



Frederic dispossessed of his dominions. Flees to Holland. 

dominions, and add to his own power ; for he 
had been promised a kingdom, in addition to 
his Palatinate, if he would assist the people of 
the kingdom to gain the victory over their 
Catholic foes. He embarked in this enterprise 
without consulting with James, his father-in- 
law, knowing that he would probably disapprove 
of such dangerous ambition. James was, in 
fact, very sorry afterward to hear of Frederic's 
having engaged in such a contest. 

The result was quite as disastrous as James 
feared. Frederic not only failed of getting his 
new kingdom, but he provoked the rage of the 
Catholic powers against whom he had under- 
taken to contend, and they poured a great army 
into his own original territory, and made an 
easy conquest of it. Frederic fled to Holland, 
and remained there a fugitive and an exile, hop- 
ing to obtain help in some way from James, in 
his efforts to recover his lost dominions. 

The people of England felt a great interest 
in Frederic's unhappy fate, and were very de- 
sirous that James should raise an army and 
give him some efficient assistance. One reason 
for this was that they were Protestants, and 
they were always ready to embark, on the 
Protestant side, in the Continental quarrels. 



36 King Charles I. [1623. 

Elizabeth. James's plan. Donna Maria. 

Another reason was their interest in Elizabeth, 
the wife of Frederic, who had so recently left 
England a blooming bride, and whom they 
still considered as in some sense pertaining to 
the royal family of England, and as having a 
right to look to all her father's subjects for pro- 
tection. 

But King James himself had no inclination 
to go to war in such a quarrel. He was inac- 
tive in mind, and childish, and he had little 
taste for warlike enterprises. He undertook, 
however, to accomplish the object in another 
way. The King of Spain, being one of the 
most powerful of the Catholic sovereigns, had 
great influence in all their councils. He had 
also a beautiful daughter, Donna Maria, called, 
as Spanish princesses are styled, the Infanta. 
Now James conceived the design of proposing 
that his son Charles should marry Donna 
Maria, and that, in the treaty of marriage, 
there should be a stipulation providing that the 
Palatinate should be restored to Frederic. 

These negotiations were commenced, and 
they went on two or three years without mak- 
ing any sensible progress. Donna Maria was 
a Catholic, and Charles a Protestant. Now a 
Catholic could not marry a Protestant without 



1623.] The Expedition into Spain. 37 

Negotiations with Spain. Obstacles and delays. 

a special dispensation from the pope. To get 
this dispensation required new negotiations and 
delays. In the midst of it all, the King of Spain, 
Donna Maria's father, died, and his son, her 
brother, named Philip, succeeded him. Then 
the negotiations had all to be commenced anew. 
It was supposed that the King of Spain did not 
wish to have the affair concluded, but liked to 
have it in discussion, as it tended to keep the 
King of England more or less under his con- 
trol. So they kept sending embassadors back 
and forth, with drafts of treaties, articles, condi- 
tions, and stipulations without number. There 
were endless discussions about securing to Don- 
na Maria the full enjoyment of the Catholic re- 
ligion in England, and express agreements 
were proposed and debated in respect to her 
having a chapel, and priests, and the right to 
celebrate mass, and to enjoy, in fact, all the 
other privileges which she had been accustomed 
to exercise in her own native land. James did 
not object. He agreed to every thing ; but still, 
some how or other, the arrangement could not 
be closed. There was always some pretext for 
delay. 

At last Buckingham proposed to Charles 
that they two should set off for Spain in per- 

D 



38 King Charles I. [1623. 

Buckingham's proposal. Nature of the adventure. 

son, and see if they could not settle the affair. 
Buckingham's motive was partly a sort of reck- 
less daring, which made him love any sort of 
adventure, and partly a desire to circumvent 
and thwart a rival of his, the Earl of Bristol, 
who had charge of the negotiations. It may 
seem to the reader that a simple journey from 
London to Madrid, of a young man, for the 
purpose of visiting a lady whom he was wish- 
ing to espouse, was no such extraordinary un- 
dertaking as to attract the attention of a spirit- 
ed young man to it from love of adventure. 
The truth is, however, that, with the ideas that 
then prevailed in respect to royal etiquette, 
there was something very unusual in this plan. 
The prince and Buckingham knew very well 
that the consent of the statesmen and high offi- 
cers of the realm could never be obtained, and 
that their only alternative was, accordingly, to 
go off secretly and in disguise. 

It seemed, however, to be rather necessary 
to get the king's consent. But Buckingham 
did not anticipate much difficulty in this, as he 
was accustomed to manage James almost like 
a child. He had not, however, been on very 
good terms with Charles, having been accus- 
tomed to treat him in the haughty and imperi- 

O 



1623.] The Expedition into Spain. 39 

Buckingham's dissimulation. Charles persuaded. 

ous manner which James would usually yield 
to, but which Charles was more inclined to re- 
sist and resent. When Buckingham, at length, 
conceived of this scheme of going into Spain, 
he changed his deportment toward Charles, 
and endeavored, by artful dissimulation, to 
gain his kind regard. He soon succeeded, and 
then he proposed his plan. 

He represented to Charles that the sole cause 
of the delays in settling the question of his mar- 
riage was because it was left so entirely in the 
hands of embassadors, negotiators, and states- 
men, who involved every thing in endless maz- 
es. " Take the affair into your own hands," 
said he, " like a man. Set off with me, and go 
at once into Spain. Astonish them with your 
sudden and unexpected presence. The Infan- 
ta will be delighted at such a proof of your ar- 
dor, courage, and devotion, and will do all in 
her power to co-operate with you in bringing 
the affair at once to a close. Besides, the 
whole world will admire the originality and 
boldness of the achievement." 

Charles was easily persuaded. The next 
thing was to get the king's consent. Charles 
and Buckingham went to his palace one day, 
and, watching their opportunity when he was 



40 King Charles I. [1623. 

James's perplexity. He reluctantly yields. 

pretty merry with wine, Charles told him he 
had a favor to ask, and wanted his father to 
promise to grant it before he knew what it was. 
James, after some hesitation, half in jest and 
half in earnest, agreed to it. They made him 
promise that he would not tell any one what it 
was, and then explained their plan. The king 
was thunderstruck ; his amazement sobered him 
at once. He retracted his promise. He never 
could consent to any such scheme. 

Buckingham here interposed with his aid. 
He told the king it was perfectly safe for the 
prince to go, and that this measure was the 
only plan which could bring the marriage 
treaty to a close. Besides, he said, if he and 
the prince were there, they could act far more 
effectually than any embassadors in securing 
the restoration of the Palatinate to Frederic. 
James could not withstand these entreaties and 
arguments, and he finally gave a reluctant con- 
sent to the plan. 

He repented, however, as soon as the con- 
sent was given, and when Charles and Buck- 
ingham came next to see him, he said it must 
be given up. One great source of his anxiety 
was a fear that his son might be taken and kept 
a prisoner, either in France or Spain, and de- 



1623.] The Expedition into Spain. 41 

James's fears. Royal captives. 

tained a long time in captivity. Such a cap- 
tive was always, in those days, a very tempt- 
ing prize to a rival power. Personages of very 
high rank may be detained as captives, while 
all the time those who detain them may pre- 
tend not to confine them at all, the guards and 
sentinels being only marks of regal state, and 
indications of the desire of the power into whose 
hands they have fallen to treat them in a man- 
ner comporting with their rank. Then there 
were always, in those days, questions and dis- 
putes pending between the rival courts of En- 
gland, France, and Spain, out of which it was 
easy to get a pretext for detaining any strolling 
prince who might cross the frontier, as security 
for the fulfillment of some stipulation, or for do- 
ing some act of justice claimed. James, know- 
ing well how much faith and honor were to be 
expected of kings and courts, was afraid to 
trust his son in French or Spanish dominions. 
He said he certainly could not consent to his 
going, without first sending to France, at least, 
for a safe-conduct — that is, a paper from the 
government, pledging the honor of the king 
not to molest or interrupt him in his journey 
through his dominions. 

Buckingham, instead of attempting to reas- 
D2 



42 King Charles I. [1623. 

Buckingham's violence. Angry disputes. 

sure the king by fresh arguments and persua- 
sions, broke out into a passion, accused him of 
violating his promise not to reveal their plan to 
any one, as he knew, he said, that this new op- 
position had been put into his head by some of 
his counselors to whom he had made known 
the design. The king denied this, and was 
terrified, agitated, and distressed by Bucking- 
ham's violence. He wept like a child. His 
opposition at length gave way a second time, 
and he said they might go. They named two 
attendants whom they wanted to go with them. 
One was an officer of the king's household, 
named Collington, who was then in the ante- 
room. They asked the king to call him in to 
see if he would go. When Collington came in, 
the king accosted him with, "Here's Steeny 
and Baby Charley that want to go to Spain 
and fetch the Infanta. What think you of 
it?" Collington did not think well of it at all. 
There followed a new relapse on the part of 
the king from his consent, a new storm of an- 
ger from Buckingham, more sullen obstinacy 
on the part of Charles, with profane crimina- 
tions and recriminations one against another. 
The whole scene was what, if it had occurred 
any where else than in a palace, would have 
"been called a brawl. 



1623.] The Expedition into Spain. 43 

James's distress. Charles and Buckingham depart 

It ended, as brawls usually do, in the tri- 
umph of the most unreasonable and violent. 
James threw himself upon a bed which was in 
the room, weeping bitterly, and saying that 
they would go, and he should lose his Baby 
Charley. Considering that Charles was now 
the monarch's only child remaining at home, 
and that, as heir to the crown, his life was of 
great consequence to the realm, it is not sur- 
prising that his father was distressed at the 
idea of his exposing himself to danger on such 
an expedition ; but one not accustomed to what 
is behind the scenes in royal life would expect 
a little more dignity and propriety in the mode 
of expressing paternal solicitude from a king. 

Charles and Buckingham set off secretly 
from London ; their two attendants were to 
join them in different places — the last at Do- 
ver, where they were to embark. They laid 
aside all marks of distinction in dress, such as 
persons of high rank used to wear in those 
days, and took the garb of the common people. 
They put on wigs, also, the hair being very 
long, so as to shade the face and alter the ex- 
pression of their countenances. These extern- 
al disguises, however, were all that they could 
command. They could not assume the modest 



44 King Charles I. [1623. 

Charles and Buckingham's boisterous conduct. Arrested at Dover 

and quiet air and manner of persons in the or- 
dinary walks of life, but made such displays, 
and were so liberal in the use of their money, 
and carried such an air and manner in all that 
they did and said, that all who had any inter- 
course with them perceived that they were in 
disguise. They were supposed to be wild 
blades, out on some frolic or other, but still 
they were allowed to pass along without any 
molestation. 

They were, however, stopped at Dover, 
where in some way they attracted the atten- 
tion of the mayor of the town. Dover is on 
the Channel, opposite to Calais, at the narrow- 
est point. It was, of course, especially in those 
days, the point where the principal intercourse 
between the two nations centered. The mag- 
istrates of the two towns were obliged, conse- 
quently, to be on the alert, to prevent the es- 
cape of fugitives and criminals, as well as to 
guard against the efforts of smugglers, or the 
entrance of spies or other secret enemies. The 
Mayor of Dover arrested our heroes. They 
told him that their names were Tom Smith 
and Jack Smith ; these, in fact, were the names 
with which they had traveled through England 
thus far. They said that they were traveling 



1623.] The Expedition into Spain. 45 

Arrival at Paris. Princess Henrietta. 

for amusement. The mayor did not believe 
them. He thought they were going across to 
the French coast to fight a duel. This was 
often done in those days. They then told him 
that they were indeed persons of rank in dis- 
guise, and that they were going to inspect the 
English fleet. He finally allowed them to em- 
bark. 

On landing at Calais, they traveled post to 
Paris, strictly preserving their incognito, but 
assuming such an air and bearing as to create 
the impression that they were not what they 
pretended. When they reached Paris, Buck- 
ingham could not resist the temptation of show- 
ing Charles a little of life, and he contrived to 
get admitted to a party at court, where Charles 
saw, among other ladies who attracted his at- 
tention, the Princess Henrietta. He was much 
struck with her beauty and grace, but he little 
thought that it was this princess, and not the 
Infanta whom he was going in pursuit of, who 
was really to become his wife, and the future 
Queen of England. 

The young travelers thought it not prudent 
to remain long in Paris, and they accordingly 
left that city, and pressed forward as rapidly as 
possible toward the Spanish frontier. They 



46 King Charles I. [1623. 

Bourdeaux. Entrance into Madrid. 

managed, however, to conduct always in such 
a way as to attract attention. Although they 
were probably sincerely desirous of not having 
their true rank and character known, still they 
could not resist the temptation to assume such 
an air and bearing as to make people wonder 
who they were, and thus increase the spirit and 
adventure of their journey. At Bourdeaux 
they received invitations from some grandees 
to be present at some great gala, but they de- 
clined, saying that they were only poor gentle- 
men traveling to inform their minds, and were 
not fit to appear in such gay assemblies. 

At last they approached Madrid. They had, 
besides Collington, another attendant who spoke 
the Spanish language, and served them as an 
interpreter. They separated from these two 
the day before they entered Madrid, so as to 
attract the less attention. Their attendants 
were to be left behind for a day, and afterward 
were to follow them into the city. The name 
of the British embassador at Madrid was the 
Earl of Bristol. He had had charge of all the 
negotiations in respect to the marriage, and to 
the restoration of the Palatinate, and believed 
that he had brought them almost to a success- 
ful termination. He lived in a palace in Mad- 



1623.] The Expedition into Spain. 47 

Bristol's amazement. Charles's reception. 

rid, and, as is customary with the embassadors 
of great powers at the courts of great powers, 
in a style of the highest pomp and splendor. 

Buckingham took the prince directly to Bris- 
tol's house. Bristol was utterly confounded at 
seeing them. Nothing could be worse, he said, 
in respect to the completion of the treaty, than 
the prince's presence in Madrid. The intro- 
duction of so new and extraordinary an ele- 
ment into the affair would undo all that had 
been done, and lead the King of Spain to begin 
anew, and go over all the ground again. In 
speaking of this occurrence to another, he said 
that just as he was on the point of coming to 
a satisfactory conclusion of his long negotia- 
tions and toils, a demon in the shape of Prince 
Charles came suddenly upon the stage to thwart 
and defeat them all. 

The Spanish court was famous in those days — 
in fact, it has always been famous — for its punc- 
tilious attention to etiquette and parade ; and 
as soon as the prince's arrival was known to 
the king, he immediately began to make prep- 
arations to welcome him with all possible 
pomp and ceremony. A great procession was 
made through the Prado, which is a street in 
Madrid famous for promenades, processions, 



48 King Charles I. [1623. 

Grand procession. Spanish etiquette. 

and public displays of all kinds. In moving 
through the city on this occasion, the king and 
Prince Charles walked together, the monarch 
thus treating the prince as his equal. There 
was a great canopy of state borne over their 
heads as they moved along. This canopy was 
supported by a large number of persons of the 
highest rank. The streets, and the windows 
and balconies of the houses on each side, were 
thronged with spectators, dressed in the gay and 
splendid court dresses of those times. When 
they reached the end of the route, and were 
about to enter the gate of the palace, there was 
a delay to decide which should enter first, the 
king and the prince each insisting on giving 
the precedence to the other. At last it was 
settled by their both going in together. 

If the prince thus, on the one hand, derived 
some benefit in the gratification of his pride by 
the Spanish etiquette and parade, he suffered 
some inconvenience and disappointment from it, 
on the other hand, by its excluding him from 
all intercourse or acquaintance with the Infan- 
ta. It was not proper for the young man to 
see or to speak to the young lady, in such a 
case as this, until the arrangements had been 
more fully matured. The formalities of the 



1623.] The Expedition into Spain. 49 

The Infanta kept secluded. Athletic amusements. 

engagement must have proceeded beyond the 
point which they had yet reached, before the 
bridegroom could be admitted to a personal in- 
terview with the bride. It is true, he could 
see her in public, where she was in a crowd, 
with other ladies of the court, and where he 
could have no communication with her ; but 
this was all. They arranged it, however, to 
give Charles as many opportunities of this kind 
as possible. They got up shows, in which the 
prince could see the Infanta among the specta- 
tors ; and they arranged tiltings and ridings at 
the ring, and other athletic sports, such as 
Charles excelled in, and let him perform his ex- 
ploits in her presence. His rivals in these con- 
tests did not have the incivility to conquer him, 
and his performances excited expressions, at 
least, of universal admiration. 

But the prince and Buckingham did not 
very willingly submit to the stiffness and for- 
mality of the Spanish court. As soon as they 
came to feel a little at home, they began to act 
with great freedom. At one time the prince 
learned that the Infanta was going, early in the 
morning, to take a walk in some private pleas- 
ure grounds, at a country house in the neigh- 
borhood of Madrid, and he conceived the de- 
4 E 



50 King Charles I. [1623. 

Charles steals an interview. Irregularities. 

sign of gaining an interview with her there by 
stealth. He accordingly repaired to the place, 
got admitted in some way within the precincts 
of the palace, and contrived to clamber over a 
high wall which separated him from the grounds 
in which the Infanta was walking, and so let 
himself down into her presence. The accounts 
do not state whether she herself was pleased or 
alarmed, but the officer who had her in charge, 
an old nobleman, was very much alarmed, and 
begged the prince to retire, as he himself would 
be subject to a very severe punishment if it 
were known that he had allowed such an inter- 
view. Finally they opened the door, and the 
prince went out. Many people were pleased 
with this and similar adventures of the prince 
and of Buckingham, but the leading persons 
about the court were displeased with them. 
Their precise and formal notions of propriety 
were very much shocked by such freedoms. 

Besides, it was soon found that the charac- 
ters of these high-born visitors, especially that 
of Buckingham, were corrupt, and their lives 
very irregular. Buckingham was accustomed 
to treat King James in a very bold, familiar, 
and imperious manner, and he fell insensibly 
into the same habits of intercourse with those 



1623.] The Expedition into Spain. 51 

Delays and difficulties. Letters. The mastic picture. 

about him in Spain. The little reserve and 
caution which he manifested at first soon wore 
off, and he began to be very generally disliked. 
In the mean time the negotiation was, as Bris- 
tol had expected, very much put back by the 
prince's arrival. The King of Spain formed new 
plans, and thought of new conditions to impose. 
The Catholics, too, thought that Charles's com- 
ing thus into a Catholic country, indicated some 
leaning, on his part, toward the Catholic faith. 
The pope actually wrote him a long letter, the 
object of which was to draw him off from the 
ranks of Protestantism. Charles wrote a civil, 
but rather an evasive reply. 

In the mean time, King James wrote childish 
letters from time to time to his two dear boys, as 
he called them, and he sent them a great many 
presents of jewelry and splendid dresses, some 
for them to wear themselves, and some for the 
prince to offer as gifts to the Infanta. Among 
these, he describes, in one of his letters, a little 
mirror, set in a case which was to be worn hung 
at the girdle. He wrote to Charles that when 
he gave this mirror to the Infanta, he must tell 
her that it was a picture which he had had im- 
bued with magical virtue by means of incan- 
tations and charms, so that whenever she 



52 King Charles I. [1623. 

The pope's dispensation. The treaty signed. 

looked into it, she would see a portrait of the 
most beautiful princess in England, France, or 
Spain. 

At last the great obstacle in the way of the 
conclusion of the treaty of marriage, which con- 
sisted in the delays and difficulties in getting 
the pope's dispensation, was removed. The 
dispensation came. But then the King of 
Spain wanted some new guarantees in respect 
to the privileges of Catholics in England, under 
pretense of securing more perfectly the rights 
of the Infanta and of her attendants when they 
should have arrived in that country. The 
truth was, he probably wanted to avail him- 
self of the occasion to gain some foothold for 
the Catholic faith in England, which country 
had become almost entirely Protestant. At 
length, however, all obstacles seemed to be re- 
moved, and the treaty was signed. The news 
ofit was received with great joy in England, 
as it seemed to secure a permanent alliance 
between the two powerful countries of England 
and Spain. Great celebrations took place in 
London, to do honor to the occasion. A chapel 
was built for the Infanta, to be ready for her 
on her arrival ; and a fleet was fitted out to con- 
vey her and her attendants to her new home. 



JG23.] The Expedition into Spain. 59 

Buckingham is hated. He breaks off the match. 

In the mean time, however, although the 
king had signed the treaty, there was a strong 
party formed against the marriage in Spain. 
Buckingham was hated and despised. Charles, 
they saw, was almost entirely under his influ- 
ence. They said they would rather see the In- 
fanta in her grave than in the hands of such 
men. Buckingham became irritated by the 
hostility he had awakened, and he determined 
to break off the match entirely. He wrote 
home to James that he had no idea that the 
Spanish court had any intention of carrying 
the arrangement really into effect ; that they 
were procrastinating the affair on every possi- 
ble pretext, and that he was really afraid that, 
if the prince were to attempt to leave. the coun- 
try, they would interpose and detain him as a 
prisoner. King James was very much alarmed. 
He wrote in the greatest trepidation, urging 
" the lads" to come away immediately, leaving 
a proxy behind them, if necessary, for the sol- 
emnization of the marriage. This was what 
Buckingham wanted, and he and the prince 
began to make preparations for their departure. 

The King of Spain, far from interposing any 
obstacles in the way, only treated them with 
greater and higher marks of respect as the 

E 2 



54 King Charles I. [1623. 

Festivities at the Escurial. Taking leave. 

time of their separation from his court drew 
nigh. He arranged great and pompous cere- 
monies to honor their departure. He accom- 
panied them, with all the grandees of the court, 
as far as to the Escurial, which is a famous 
royal palace not far from Madrid, built and 
furnished in the most sumptuous style of mag- 
nificence and splendor. Here they had part- 
ing feasts and celebrations. Here the prince 
took his leave of the Infanta, Bristol serving as 
interpreter, to translate his parting speeches 
into Spanish, so that she could understand them. 
From the Escurial the prince and Bucking- 
ham, with a great many English noblemen 
who had followed them to Madrid, and a great 
train of attendants, traveled toward the sea- 
coast, where a fleet of vessels were ready to 
receive them. 

They embarked at a port called St. Andrew. 
They came very near being lost in a storm of 
mist and rain which came upon them while 
.going out to the ships, which were at a dis- 
tance from the shore, in small boats provided 
to convey them. Having escaped this danger, 
they arrived safely at Portsmouth, the great 
landing point of the British navy on the south- 
ern shores of England, and thence proceeded to 



1623.] The Expedition into Spain. 57 

Return to London. The Spanish match broken off. 

London. They sent back orders that the proxy- 
should not be used, and the match was finally 
abandoned, each party accusing the other of 
duplicity and bad faith. King James was, 
however, very glad to get his son safe back 
again, and the people made as many bonfires 
and illuminations to celebrate the breaking up 
of this Catholic match, as they had done before 
to do honor to its supposed completion. As all 
hope of recovering the Palatinate by negotia- 
tion was now past, the king began to prepare 
for the attempt to reconquer it by force of arms. 



58 King Charles I. [1625. 

James prepares for war. He falls ill. 



Chapter III. 
Accession to the Throne. 

KING JAMES made slow progress in his 
military preparations. He could not 
raise the funds without the action of Parlia- 
ment, and the houses were not in very good 
humor. The expenses of the prince's visit to 
Spain had been enormous, and other charges, 
arising out of the pomp and splendor with which 
the arrangements of the court were maintained, 
gave them a little feeling of discontent. They 
had other grievances of which they were dis- 
posed to complain, and they began to look upon 
this war, notwithstanding its Protestant char- 
acter, as one in which the king was only striv- 
ing to recover his son-in-law's dominions, and, 
consequently, as one which pertained more to 
his personal interests than to the public welfare 
of the realm. 

While things were in this state the king fell 
sick. The mother of the Duke of Buckingham 
undertook to prescribe for him. It was under- 
stood that Buckingham himself, who had, in 



1625.] Accession to the Throne. 59 

Suspicions. Death of Janies. Accession of Charles. 

the course of the Spanish enterprise, and since 
his return, acquired an entire ascendency over 
Charles, was not unwilling that his old master 
should leave the stage, and the younger one 
reign in his stead ; and that his mother shared 
in this feeling. At any rate, her prescriptions 
made the king much worse. He had the sac- 
rament administered to him in his sick cham- 
ber, and said that he derived great comfort from 
it. One morning, very early, he sent for the 
prince to come and see him. Charles rose, 
dressed himself, and came. His father had 
something to say to him, and tried to speak. 
He could not. His strength was too far gone. 
He fell back upon his pillow, and died. 

Charles was, of course, now king. The 
theory in the English monarchy is, that the 
king never dies. So soon as the person in 
whom the royal sovereignty resides ceases to 
breathe, the principle of supremacy vests im- 
mediately in his successor, by a law of trans- 
mission entirely independent of the will of man. 
The son becomes king by a divine right. His 
being proclaimed and crowned, as he usually 
is, at some convenient time early in his reign, 
are not ceremonies which make him king. 
They only acknowledge him to be so. He 



60 King Charles I. [1625. 

Different ideas of the nature and end of government. 

does not, in any sense, derive his powers and 
prerogatives from these acts. He only receives 
from his people, by means of them, a recogni- 
tion of his right to the high office to which he 
has already been inducted by the fiat of Heaven. 
It will be observed, thus, that the ideas which 
prevailed in respect to the nature and province 
of government, were very different in England 
at that time from those which are entertained 
in America at the present day. With us, the 
administration of government is merely a busi- 
ness, transacted for the benefit of the people 
by their agents — men who are put in power 
for this purpose, and who, like other agents, 
are responsible to their principals for the man- 
ner in which they fulfill their trusts. But gov- 
ernment in England was, in the days of the 
Stuarts — and it is so to a great extent at the 
present day — a right which one family possess- 
ed, and which entitled that family to certain im- 
munities, powers, and prerogatives, which they 
held entirely independent of any desire, on the 
part of the people, that they should exercise 
them, or even their consent that they should do 
so. The right to govern the realm of Great 
Britain was a sort of estate which descended 
to Charles from his ancestors, and with the pos- 



1625.] Accession to the Throne. 61 

Hereditary succession illustrated by an argument. 

session and enjoyment of which the community 
had no right to interfere. 

This seems, at first view, very absurd to us, 
but it is not particularly absurd. Charles's 
lawyers would say to any plain proprietor of a 
piece of land, who might call in question his 
right to govern the country, The king holds his 
crown by precisely the same tenure that you 
hold your farm. Why should you be the ex- 
clusive possessor of that land, while so many 
poor beggars are starving ? Because it has de- 
scended to you from your ancestors, and noth- 
ing has descended to them. And it is precise- 
ly so that the right to manage the fleets and 
armies, and to administer the laws of the realm, 
has descended, under the name of sovereignty, 
to him, and no such political power has de- 
scended to you. 

True, the farmer would reply ; but in mat- 
ters of government we are to consider what 
will promote the general good. The great ob- 
ject to be attained is the welfare and happiness 
of the community. Now, if this general wel- 
fare comes into competition with the supposed 
rights of individuals, arising from such a prin- 
ciple as hereditary succession, the latter ought 
certainly to yield. 

F 



62 King Charles I. [1625. 

Property and prerogatives. Hereditary succession an absolute right. 

But why, might the lawyer reply, should 
rights founded on hereditary succession yield 
any more readily in the case of government 
than in the case of property ? The distribution 
of property influences the general welfare quite 
as much as the management of power. Sup- 
pose it were proved that the general welfare of 
your parish would be promoted by the division 
of your land among the destitute there. You 
have nothing to oppose to such a proposition 
but your hereditary right. And the king has 
that to oppose to any plan of a division of his 
prerogatives and powers among the people who 
would like to share them. 

Whatever may be thought of this reasoning 
on this side of the Atlantic, and at the present 
day, it was considered very satisfactory in En- 
gland two or three centuries ago. The true 
and proper jurisdiction of an English monarch, 
as it had existed from ancient times, was con- 
sidered as an absolute right, vesting in each 
successive inheritor of the crown, and which 
the community could not justly interfere with 
or disturb for any reasons less imperious than 
such as would authorize an interference with 
the right of succession to private property. In- 
deed, it is probable that, with most men at 



1625.] Accession to the Throne. 63 

Three things hereditary in England. The Stuarts. 

that time, an inherited right to govern was 
regarded as the most sacred of the two. 

The fact seems to be, that the right of a son 
to come into the place of his father, whether in 
respect to property, power, or social rank, is 
not a natural, inherent, and indefeasible right, 
but a privilege which society accords, as a 
matter of convenience and expediency. In En- 
gland, expediency is, on the whole, considered 
to require that all three of these things, viz., 
property, rank, and power, in certain cases, 
should descend from father to son. In this 
country, on the other hand, we confine the he- 
reditament to property, abrogating it in the 
case of rank and power. In neither case is 
there probably any absolute natural right, but 
a conventional right is allowed to take its place 
in one, or another, or all of these particulars, 
according to the opinion of the community in 
respect to what its true interests and the gen- 
eral welfare, on the whole, require. 

The kings themselves of this Stuart race — 
which race includes Mary Queen of Scots, the 
mother of the line, and James I., Charles I., 
Charles II., and James II. — entertained very 
high ideas of these hereditary rights of theirs 
to govern the realm of England. They felt a 



64 King Charles I. [1625. 

Parliament. The Legislature in the United States. 

determination to maintain these rights and 
powers at all hazards. Charles ascended the 
throne with these feelings, and the chief point 
of interest in the history of his reign is the con- 
test in which he engaged with the English peo- 
ple in his attempts to maintain them. 

The body with which the king came most 
immediately into conflict in this long struggle 
were the two houses of Parliament. And here 
American readers are very liable to fall into a 
mistake by considering the houses of Parlia- 
ment as analogous to the houses of legislation 
in the various governments of this country. 
In our governments the chief magistrate has 
only to execute definite and written laws and or- 
dinances, passed by the Legislature, and which 
the Legislature may pass with or without his 
consent; and when enacted, he must be gov- 
erned by them. Thus the president or the 
governor is, in a certain sense, the agent and 
officer of the legislative power of the state, to 
carry into effect its decisions, and this legisla- 
tive power has really the control. 

By the ancient Constitution of England, how- 
ever, the Parliament was merely a body of 
counselors, as it were, summoned by the king 
to give him their advice, to frame for him such 



1625.] Accession to the Throne. (>5 

The nature of Parliament. The nobles. 

laws as he wanted to have framed, and to aid 
him in raising funds by taxing the people. 
The king might call this council or not, as he 
pleased. There was no necessity for calling it 
unless he needed more funds than he could 
raise by his own resources. When called, they 
felt that they had come, in a great measure, to 
aid the king in doing his will. When they 
framed a law, they sent it to him, and if he 
was satisfied with it, he made it law. It was 
the king who really enacted it. If he did not 
approve the law, he wrote upon the parchment 
which contained it, " The king will think of it," 
and that was the end. The king would call 
upon them to assess a tax and collect the mon- 
ey, and would talk to them about his plans, 
and his government, and the aid which he 
wanted from them to enable him to accomplish 
what he had himself undertaken. In fact, the 
king was the government, and the houses of 
Parliament his instruments to aid him in giv- 
ing effect to his decrees. 

The nobles, that is, the heads of the great 
families, and also the bishops, who were the 
heads of the various dioceses of the Church, 
formed one branch of this great council. This 
was called the House of Lords. Certain repre- 
5 F 2 



66 King Charles I. [1625. 

The House of Commons. Its humble position. 

sentatives of the counties and of the towns 
formed another branch, called the House of 
Commons. These delegates came to the coun- 
cil, not from any right which the counties and 
towns were supposed to possess to a share in 
the government, but simply because they were 
summoned by the king to come and give him 
their aid. They were to serve without pay, as 
a matter of duty which they owed to the sov- 
ereign. Those that came from counties were 
called knights, and those from the towns bur- 
gesses. These last were held in very little es- 
timation. The towns, in those days, were con- 
sidered as mere collections of shopkeepers and 
tradesmen, who were looked down upon with 
much disdain by the haughty nobles. When 
the king called his Parliament together, and 
went in to address them, he entered the cham- 
ber of the House of Peers, and the commons 
were called in, to stand where they could, with 
their heads uncovered, to hear what he had to 
say. They were, in a thousand other ways, 
treated as an inferior class ; but still their coun- 
sels might, in some cases, be of service, and so 
they were summoned to attend, though they 
were to meet always, and deliberate, in a sep- 
arate chamber. 



1625.] Accession to the Throne. 67 

The king's power over Parliament His responsibility. 

As the king could call the Parliament to- 
gether at any time and place he pleased, so he 
could suspend or terminate their sittings at any 
time. He could intermit the action of a Par- 
liament for a time, sending the members to 
their homes until he should summon them 
again. This was called a prorogation. Or 
he could dissolve the body entirely at any 
time, and then require new elections for a 
new Parliament whenever he wanted to avail 
himself of the wisdom or aid of such a body 
again. 

Thus every thing went on the supposition 
that the real responsibility for the government 
was with the king. He was the monarch, and 
the real sovereignty vested in him. He called 
his nobles, and a delegation from the mass of 
the people, together, whenever he wanted their 
help, and not otherwise. He was responsible, 
not to them nor to the people at large, but to 
God only, for the acts of his administration. 
The duty of Parliament was limited to that of 
aiding him in carrying out his plans of gov- 
ernment, and the people had nothing to do but 
to be obedient, submissive, and loyal. These 
were, at any rate, the ideas of the kings, and 
all the forms of the English Constitution, and 



68 King Charles I. [1625. 

An illustration. James's message to Parliament. 

the ancient phraseology in which the transac- 
tions are expressed, correspond with them. 

We can not give a better proof and illustra- 
tion of what has been said than by transcrib- 
ing the substance of one of King James's mes- 
sages to his Parliament, delivered about the 
close of his life, and, of course, at the period of 
which we are writing. It was as follows : 

" My Lords spiritual and temporal, and you the Commons : 
In my last Parliament I made long discourses, especially to 
them of the Lower House. I did open the true thought of my 
heart. But I may say with our Savior, ' I have piped to you 
and ye have not danced; I have mourned to you and you 
have not lamented;' so all my sayings turned to me again 
without any success. And now, to tell the reasons of your 
calling and of this meeting, apply it to yourselves, and spend 
not the time in long speeches. Consider that the Parliament 
is a thing composed of a head and a body ; the monarch and 
the two estates. It was, first, a monarchy ; then, after, a Par- 
liament. There are no Parliaments but in monarchical gov- 
ernments; for in Venice, the Netherlands, and other free 
governments there are none. The head is to call the body 
together ; and for the clergy the bishops are chief, for shires 
their knights, for towns and cities their burgesses and citi- 
zens. These are to treat of difficult matters, and counsel 
their king with their best advice to make laws* for the com- 
monweal ; and the Lower House is also to petition the king 
and acquaint him with their grievances, and not to meddle 
with the king's prerogative. They are to offer supply for 
his necessity, and he to distribute, in recompense thereof, 

* Meaning advice to him how he shall make laws, as is 
evident from what is said below. 



1625.] Accession to the Throne. 69 

James's message to Parliament. Its high tone. 

justice and mercy. As in all Parliaments it is the king's of- 
fice to make good laws, whose fundamental cause is the peo- 
ple's ill manners, so at this time. 

" For a supply to my necessities, I have reigned eighteen 
years, in which I have had peace, and I have received far 
less supply than hath been given to any king since the Con- 
cruest. The last queen had, one year with another, above a 
hundred thousand pounds per annum in subsidies ; and in all 
my time I have had but four subsidies* and six fifteens.* It 
is ten years since I had a subsidy, in all which time I have 
been sparing to trouble you. I have turned myself as nearly 
to save expenses as I may. I have abated much in my 
household expenses, in my navies, and the charge of my mu- 
nition." 

After speaking about the affairs of the Pa- 
latinate, and calling upon the Parliament to 
furnish him with money to recover it for his 
son-in-law, he adds : 

" Consider the trade for the making thereof better, and 
show me the reason why my mint, these eight or nine years, 
hath not gone. I confess I have been liberal in my grants ; 
but if I be informed, I will amend all hurtful grievances. 
But whoever shall hasten after grievances, and desire to make 
himself popular, he hath the spirit of Satan. I was, in my 
first Parliament, a novice ; and in my last, there was a kind 
of beasts, called undertakers, a dozen of whom undertook to 
govern the last Parliament, and they led me. I shall thank 
you for your good office, and desire that the world may say 
well of our agreement." 

This kind of harangue from the king to his 
Parliament seems not to have been considered, 

* Species of taxes granted by Paiiiament. 



70 King Charles I. [1625. 

Privileges of the House of Commons. 

at the time, at all extraordinary ; though, if 
such a message were to be sent, at the present 
day, by a President of the United States to the 
houses of Congress, we think it would make a 
sensation. 

Still, notwithstanding what we have said, 
the Parliament did contrive gradually to attain 
to the possession of some privileges and powers 
of its own. The English people have a great 
deal of independence and spirit, though Ameri- 
cans traveling there, with ideas carried from 
this country, are generally surprised at finding 
so little instead of so much. The knights and 
burgesses of the House of Commons, though 
they submitted patiently to the forms of degra- 
dation which the lords and kings imposed upon 
them, gradually got possession of certain pow- 
ers which they claimed as their own, and which 
they showed a strong disposition to defend. 
They claimed the exclusive right to lay taxes 
of every kind. This had been the usage so 
long, that they had the same right to it that 
the king had to his crown. They had a right, 
too, to petition the king for a redress of any 
grievances which they supposed the people 
were suffering under his reign. These, and 
certain other powers and immunities which 



1625.] Accession to the Throne. 71 

The king's prerogatives. Charles's contest with Parliament. 

they had possessed, were called their privileges. 
The king's rights were, on the other hand, 
called his prerogatives. The Parliament were 
always endeavoring to extend, define, and es- 
tablish their privileges. The king was equally 
bent on maintaining his ancient prerogatives. 
King Charles's reign derives its chief interest 
from the long and insane contest which he 
waged with his Parliament on this question. 
The contest commenced at the king's accession 
to the throne, and lasted a quarter of a cen- 
tury : it ended with his losing all his preroga- 
tives and his head. 

This circumstance, that the main interest in 
King Charles's reign is derived from his con- 
test with his Parliament, has made it necessary 
to explain somewhat fully, as we have done, 
the nature of that body. We have described it 
as it was in the days of the Stuarts ; but, in 
order not to leave any wrong impression on the 
mind of the reader in regard to its present con- 
dition, we must add, that though all its ex- 
ternal forms remain the same, the powers and 
functions of the body have greatly changed. 
The despised and contemned knights and bur- 
gesses, that were not worthy to have seats pro- 
vided for them when the king was delivering 



72 King Charles I. [1625. - 

Present condition of the Commons. Its vast influence. 

them his speech, now rule the world ; or, at 
least, come nearer to the possession of that do- 
minion than any other power has ever done, in 
ancient or modern times. They decide who 
shall administer the government, and in what 
way. They make the laws, settle questions 
of trade and commerce, decide really on peace 
and war, and, in a word, hold the whole con- 
trol, while the nominal sovereign takes rides 
in the royal parks, or holds drawing-rooms in 
the palaces, in empty and powerless parade. 
There is no question that the British House of 
Commons has exerted a far wider influence on 
the destinies of the human race than any other 
governmental power that has ever existed. It 
has gone steadily on for five, and perhaps for 
ten centuries, in the same direction and toward 
the same ends ; and whatever revolutions may 
threaten other elements of European power, 
the British House of Commons, in some form 
or other, is as sure as any thing human can be 
of existence and power for five or ten centuries 
to come. 

And yet it is one of the most remarkable of 
the strange phenomena of social life, that this 
body, standing at the head, as it really does, 
of all human power, submits patiently still to 



1625.] Accession to the Throne. 73 

Old forms still retained. Will probably be changed. 

all the marks and tokens of inferiority and deg- 
radation which accompanied its origin. It 
comes together when the sovereign sends writs, 
ordering the several constituencies to choose 
their representatives, and the representatives to 
assemble. It comes humbly into the House of 
Peers to listen to the instructions of the sover- 
eign at the opening of the session, the mem- 
bers in a standing position, and with heads un- 
covered.* It debates these suggestions with 
forms and in a phraseology which imply that 
it is only considering what counsel to give the 
king. It enacts nothing — it only recommends ; 
and it holds its existence solely at the discre- 
tion of the great imaginary power which called 
it into being. These forms may, very proba- 
bly, soon be changed for others more true to 
the facts ; and the principle of. election may be 
changed, so as to make the body represent more 
fully the general population of the empire ; but 
the body itself will doubtless continue its action 
for a very long period to come. 

According to the view of the subject which 

* Even in the case of a committee of conference between 
the two houses, the lords have seats in the committee-room, 
and wear their hats. The members from the commons must 
stand, and be uncovered during the deliberations ' 

(i 



74 King Charles I. [1625. 

Effects of a demise of the crown. All offices expire. 

we have presented, it would of course follow, 
as the real sovereignty was mainly in the king's 
hands, that at the death of one monarch and 
the accession of another, the functions of all 
officers holding their places under the authority 
of the former would expire. This was actually 
the case. And it shows how entirely the Par- 
liament was considered as the instrument and 
creation of the king, that on the death of a king, 
the Parliament immediately expired. The new 
monarch must make a new Parliament if he 
wished one to help him carry out his own plans. 
In the same manner almost all other offices ex- 
pired. As it would be extremely inconvenient 
or impossible to appoint anew all the officers 
of such a realm on a sudden emergency, it is 
usual for the king to issue a decree renewing 
the appointments of the existing incumbents of 
these offices. Thus King Charles, two days 
after his father's death, made it his first act to 
renew the appointments of the members of his 
father's privy council, of the foreign embassa- 
dors, and of the judges of the courts, in order 
that the affairs of the empire might go on with- 
out interruption. He also issued summonses 
for calling a Parliament, and then made ar- 
rangements for the solemnization of his father's 
funeral. 



1625.] Accession to the Throne. 77 



Westminster. The Strand. Temple Bar. 

The scene of these transactions was what 
was, in those days, called Westminster. Min- 
ster means cathedral. A cathedral church had 
been built, and an abbey founded, at a short 
distance west from London, near the mouth of 
the Thames. The church was called the West 
minster, and the abbey, Westminster Abbey. 
The town afterward took the same name. The 
street leading to the city of London from West- 
minster was called the Strand ; it lay along the 
shore of the river. The gate by which the city 
of London was entered on this side was called 
Temple Bar, on account of a building just 
within the walls, at that point, which was call- 
ed the Temple. In process of time, London ex- 
panded beyond its bounds and spread westward. 
The Strand became a magnificent street of 
shops and stores. Westminster was filled with 
palaces and houses of the nobility, the whole 
region being entirely covered with streets and 
edifices of the greatest magnificence and splen- 
dor. Westminster is now called the West End 
of London, though the jurisdiction of the city 
still ends at Temple Bar. 

Parliament held its sessions in a building 
near the shore, called St. Stephen's. The king's 
palace, called St. James's Palace, was near. 

G 2 



78 King Charles I. [1625. 

Somerset House. James's funeral. 

The old church became a place of sepulture for 
the English kings, where a long line of them 
now repose. The palace of King James's wife, 
Anne of Denmark, was on the bank of the river, 
some distance down the Strand. She called it, 
during her life, Denmark House, in honor of 
her native land. Its name is now Somerset 
House. 

King James's funeral was attended with 
great pomp. The body was conveyed from 
Somerset House to its place of repose in the 
Abbey, and attended by a great procession. 
King Charles walked as chief mourner. Two 
earls attended him, one on each side, and the 
train of his robes was borne by twelve peers 
of the realm. The expenses of this funeral 
amounted to a sum equal to two hundred thou- 
sand dollars. 

One thing more is to be stated before we 
can consider Charles as fairly entered upon his 
career, and that is the circumstance of his mar- 
riage. His father James, so soon as he found 
the negotiations with Spain must be finally 
abandoned, opened a new negotiation with the 
King of France for his daughter Henrietta 
Maria. After some delay, this arrangement 
was concluded upon. The treaty of marriage 



1625.] Accession to the Throne. 79 

Marriage of Charles. Imposing ceremonies. 

was made, and soon after the old king's death, 
Charles began to think of bringing home his 
bride. 

He accordingly made out a commission for a 
nobleman, appointed for the purpose, to act in 
his name, in the performance of the ceremony 
at Paris. The pope's dispensation was obtain- 
ed, Henrietta Maria, as well as the Infanta, 
being a Catholic. The ceremony was perform- 
ed, as such ceremonies usually were in Paris, 
in the famous church of Notre Dame, where 
Charles's grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots, 
had been married to a prince of France about 
seventy years before. 

There was a great theater, or platform, erect- 
ed in front of the altar in the church, which 
was thronged by the concourse of spectators 
who rushed to witness the ceremony. The 
beautiful princess was married by proxy to a 
man in another kingdom, whom she had never 
seen, or, at least, never known. It is not 
probable that she observed him at the time 
when he was, for one evening, in her presence, 
on his journey through Paris. The Duke of 
Buckingham had been sent over by Charles to 
conduct home his bride. Ships were waiting 
at Boulogne, a port nearly opposite to Dover, 



80 King Charles I. [1625. 

Arrival of the bride at London. Her residence. 

to take her and her attendants on board. She 
bade farewell to the palaces of Paris, and set 
out on her journey.* 

The king, in the mean time, had gone to 
Dover, where he awaited her arrival. She 
landed at Dover on the day after sailing from 
Boulogne, sea-sick and sad. The king received 
his bride, and with their attendants they went 
by carriages to Canterbury, and on the follow- 
ing day they entered London. Great prepara- 
tions had been made for receiving the king and 
his consort in a suitable manner ; but London 
was, at this time, in a state of great distress 
and fear on account of the plague which had 
broken out there. The disease had increased 
during the king's absence, and the alarm and 
anxiety were so great, that the rejoicings on 
account of the arrival of the queen were omit- 
ted. She journeyed quietly, therefore, to West- 
minster, and took up her abode at Somerset 
House, which had been the residence of her 
predecessor. They had fitted it up for her re- 
ception, providing for it, among other conven- 
iences, a Roman Catholic chapel, where she 
could enjoy the services of religion in the forms 
to which she had been accustomed. 

* See portrait at the commencement of this volume. 



25.'] Buckingham. 81 

Charles's accession. Leading events of his reign. 



Chapter IV. 

Buc KIN GUAM. 

CHARLES commenced his reign in 1625. 
He continued to reign about twenty-four 
years. It will assist the reader to receive and 
retain in mind a clear idea of the course of 
events during his reign, if we regard it as di- 
vided into three periods. During the first, 
which continued about four years, Charles and 
the Parliament were both upon the stage, con- 
tending with each other, but not at open war. 
Each party managed, and maneuvered, and 
struggled to gain its own ends, the disagree- 
ment widening and deepening continually, till it 
ended in an open rupture, when Charles aban- 
doned the plan of having Parliaments at all, 
and attempted to govern alone. This attempt 
to manage the empire without a legislature 
lasted for ten years, and is the second period. 
After this a Parliament was called, and it soon 
made itself independent of the king, and be- 
came hostile to him, the two powers being at 
open war, which constitutes the third period. 
6 



82 King Charles I. [1625. 

Buckingham. His influence over the king. 

Thus we have four years spent in getting into 
the quarrel between the king and Parliament, 
ten years in an attempt by the king to govern 
alone, and, finally, ten years of war, more or 
less open, the king on one side, and the Parlia- 
ment on the other. 

The first four years — that is, the time spent 
in getting really into the quarrel with Parlia- 
ment, was Buckingham's work, for during that 
time Buckingham's influence with the king 
was paramount and supreme ; and whatever 
was done that was important or extraordinary, 
though done in the king's name, really origi- 
nated in him. The whole country knew this, 
and were indignant that such a man, so un- 
principled, so low in character, so reckless, and 
so completely under the sway of his impulses 
and passions, should have such an influence 
over the king, and, through him, such power to 
interfere with and endanger the mighty in- 
terests of so vast a realm. 

It must not be supposed, however, in conse- 
quence of what has been said about the extent 
of the regal power in England, that the daily 
care and responsibility of the affairs of govern- 
ment, in its ordinary administration, rested di- 
rectly upon the king. It is not possible that 



1625.] Buckingham. 83 



General system of government. 



any one mind can even comprehend, far less di- 
rect, such an enormous complication of inter- 
ests and of action as is involved in the carry- 
ing on, from day to day, the government of an 
empire. Offices, authorities, and departments 
of administration spring up gradually, and all 
the ordinary routine of the affairs of the empire 
are managed by them. Thus the navy was all 
completely organized, with its gradations of 
rank, its rules of action, its records, its account 
books, its offices and arrangements for provi- 
sionment and supply, the whole forming a vast 
system which moved on of itself, whether the 
king were' present or absent, sick or well, living 
or dead. It was so with the army ; it was so 
with the courts ; it was so with the general ad- 
ministration of the government at London. 
The immense mass of business which consti- 
tuted the work of government was all system- 
atized and arranged, and it moved on regular- 
ly, in the hands of more or less prudent and 
careful men, who governed, themselves, by an- 
cient rules and usages, and in most cases man- 
aged wisely. 

Every thing, however, was done in the king's 
name. The ships were his majesty's ships, 
the admirals were his majesty's servants, the 



84 King Charles I. [1625. 

His majesty. Every thing done in the lung's name. 

war was his majesty's war, the court was the 
King's Bench. The idea was. that all these 
thousands of officers, of all ranks and grades, 
were only an enormous multiplication of his 
majesty ; that they might do his will and carry 
on his administration as he would himself carry 
it on were he personally capable of attending to 
such a vast detail; subject, of course, to cer- 
tain limits and restrictions which the laws and 
customs of the realm, and the promises and 
contracts of his predecessors, had imposed. But 
although all this action was theoretically the 
king's action, it came to be, in fact, almost 
wholly independent of him. It wenx on of it- 
self, in a regular and systematic way, pursuing 
its own accustomed course, except so far as the 
king directly interposed to modify its action. 

It might be supposed that the king would 
certainly take the general direction of affairs 
into his own hands, and that this charge, at 
least, would necessarily come upon him, as 
king, day by day. Some monarchs have at- 
tempted to do this, but it is obvious that there 
must be some provision for having this general 
charge, as well as all the subordinate functions 
of government, attended to independently of the 
king, as his being always in a condition to ful- 



1625.] Buckingham. 85 

The Privy Council. It represents the king. 

fill this duty is not to be relied upon. Some- 
times the king is young and inexperienced ; 
sometimes he is sick or absent ; and some- 
times he is too feeble in mind, or too indolent, 
or too devoted to his pleasures to exercise any 
governmental care. There has gradually grown 
up, therefore, in all monarchies, the custom -of 
having a central board of officers of state, whom 
the king appoints, and who take the general 
direction of affairs off his mind, except so far as 
he chooses to interfere. This board, in England, 
is called the Privy Council. 

The Privy Council in England is a body of 
great importance. Its nature and its functions 
are, of course, entirely different from those of 
the two houses of Parliament. They repre- 
sent, or are intended to represent, the nation. 
The Parliament is, in theory, the nation, as- 
sembled at the king's command, to give him 
their advice. The Privy Council, on the other 
hand, represents the king. It is the king's 
Privy Council. They act in his name. They 
follow his directions when he chooses to give 
any. Whatever they decide upon and decree, 
the king signs — often, indeed, without any idea 
of what it is ; but he still signs it, and all such 
decrees go forth to the world as the king's or- 

H 



86 King Charles I. [1625. 

Constitution and functions of the Privy Council. 

ders in council. The Privy Council, of course, 
would have its meetings, its officers, its records, 
it^ rules of proceeding, and its various usages, 
and these grew, in time, to be laws and rights ; 
but still it was, in theory, only a sort of expan- 
sion of the king, as if to make a kind of artifi- 
cial being, with one soul, but many heads and 
hands, because no natural human being could 
possibly have capacities and powers extensive 
and multifarious enough for the exigencies of 
reigning. Charles thus had a council who 
went on with every thing, except so far as he 
chose to interpose. The members were gen- 
erally able and experienced men. And yet 
Buckingham was among them. He had been 
made Lord High Admiral of England, which 
gave him supreme command of the navy, and 
admitted him to the Privy Council. These 
were very high honors. 

This Privy Council now took the direction 
of public affairs, attended to every thing, pro- 
vided for all emergencies, and kept all the com- 
plicated machinery of government in motion, 
without the necessity of the king's having any 
personal agency in the matter. The king 
might interpose, more or less, as he was inclin- 
ed; and when he did interpose, he sometimes 



1625.] Buckingham. 87 

Restrictions on the royal power. A new Parliament. 

found obstacles in the way of immediately ac- 
complishing his plans, in the forms or usages 
which had gradually grown into laws. 

For instance, when the king began his reign, 
he was very eager to have the war for the re- 
covery of the Palatinate go on at once ; and he 
was, besides, very much embarrassed for want 
of money. He wished, therefore, in order to 
save time, that the old Parliament which King 
James had called should continue to act under 
his reign. But his Privy Council told him that 
that could not be. That was James's Parlia- 
ment. If he wanted one for his reign, he must 
call upon the people to elect a new Parliament 
for him. 

The new Parliament was called, and Charles 
sent them a very civil message, explaining the 
emergency which had induced him to call them, 
and the reason why he was so much in want of 
money. His father had left the government a 
great deal in debt. There had been heavy ex- 
penses connected with the death of the former 
king, and with his own accession and marriage. 
Then there was the war. It had been engaged 
in by his father, with the approbation of the 
former Parliament ; and engagements had been 
made with allies, which now they could not 



88 King Charles I. [1625. 

The new Parliament meets at Oxford. 

honorably retract. He urged them, therefore, 
to grant, without delay, the necessary supplies. 

The Parliament met in July, but the plague 
was increasing in London, and they had to ad- 
journ, early in August, to Oxford. This city 
is situated upon the Thames, and was then, as 
it is now, the seat of a great many colleges. 
These colleges were independent of each other 
in their internal management, though united 
together in one general system. The name of 
one of them, which is still very distinguished, 
was Christ Church College. They had, among 
the buildings of that college, a magnificent hall, 
more than one hundred feet long, and very lofty, 
built in a very imposing style. It is still a 
great object of interest to all who visit Oxford. 
This hall was fitted up for the use of Parlia- 
ment, and the king met the two houses there, 
and made a new speech himself, and had others 
made by his ministers, explaining the state of 
public affairs, and gently urging the houses to 
act with promptness and decision. 

The houses then separated, and each com- 
menced its own deliberations. But, instead of 
promptly complying with the king's proposals, 
they sent him a petition for redress of a long 
list of what they called grievances. These 



1625.] Buckingham. 89 

Difficulties commence between the king and Parliament. 

grievances were, almost all of them, complaints 
of the toleration and encouragement of the 
Catholics, through the influence of the king's 
Catholic bride. She had stipulated to have a 
Catholic chapel, and Catholic attendants, and, 
after her arrival in England, she and Bucking- 
ham had so much influence over the king, that 
they were producing quite a change at court, 
and gradually through all ranks of society, in 
favor of the Catholics. The Commons com- 
plained of a great many things, nearly all, how- 
ever, originating in this cause. The king an- 
swered these complaints, clause by clause, prom- 
ising redress more or less distinctly. There is 
not room to give this petition and the answers 
in full, but as all the subsequent troubles be- 
tween Charles and the people of England arose 
out of this difficulty of his young wife's bring- 
ing in so strong a Catholic influence with her 
to the realm, it may be well to give an abstract 
of some of the principal petitions, with the king's 
answers. 

The Commons said 

That they had understood that popish priests, 
and other Catholics, were gradually creeping in 
as teachers of the youth of the realm, in the 

H2 



90 King Charles I. [1625. 

Demands of Parliament, and the king's answers. 

various seminaries of learning, and they wanted 
to have decided measures taken to examine all 
candidates for such stations, with a view to the 
careful exclusion of all who were not true Prot- 
estants. 

King. — Allowed. And I will send to the 
archbishops and all the authorities to see that 
this is done. 

Commons. — That more efficient arrange- 
ments should be made for appointing able and 
faithful men in the Church — men that will 
really devote themselves to preaching the Gos- 
pel to the people, instead of conferring these 
places and salaries on favorites ; sometimes, as 
has been the case, several to the same man. 

The king made some explanations in regard 
to this subject, and promised hereafter to com- 
ply with this requisition. 

Commons. — That the laws against sending 
children out of the country to foreign countries 
to be educated in Catholic seminaries should 
be strictly enforced, and the practice be entire- 
ly broken up. 

King. — Agreed; and he would send to the 
lord admiral, and to all the naval officers on 



1625.] Buckingham. 91 

Demands of Parliament, and the king's answers. 

the coast, to watch very carefully and stop all 
children attempting to go abroad for such a 
purpose ; and he would issue a proclamation 
commanding all the noblemen's children now 
on the Continent to return by a given day. 

Commons. — That no Catholic (or, as they 
called him, popish recusant, that is, a person 
refusing to subscribe to the Protestant faith, 
recusant meaning person refusing) be admit- 
ted into the king's service at court ; and that 
no English Catholic be admitted into the 
queen's service. They could not refuse to al- 
low her to employ her own French attendants, 
but to appoint English Catholics to the honor- 
able and lucrative offices at her disposal was 
doing a great injury to the Protestant cause in 
the realm. 

The king agreed to this, with some condi- 
tions and evasions. 



Commons. — That all Jesuits and Catholic 
priests, owing allegiance to the See of Rome, 
should be sent away from the country, accord- 
ing to laws already existing, after fair notice 
given ; and if they would not go, that they 
should be imprisoned in such a manner as to be 



92 King Charles I. [1625. 

The king and the Commons both in the wrong. 

kept from all communication with other per- 
sons, so as not to disseminate their false reli- 
gion. 

King. — The laws on this subject shall be 
enforced. 



The above are sufficient for a specimen of 
these complaints and of the king's answers. 
There were many more of them, but they have 
all the same character and end, namely, to stop 
the strong current of Catholic influence and as- 
cendency which was setting in to the court, 
and through the court into the realm, through 
the influence of the young queen and the per- 
sons connected with her. At the present day, 
and in this country, the Commons will be 
thought to be in the wrong, inasmuch as the 
thing which they were contending against was, 
in the main, merely the toleration of the Cath- 
olic religion. But then the king was in the 
wrong too, for, since the laws against this tol- 
eration stood enacted by the consent and con- 
currence of his predecessors, he should not have 
allowed them to be infracted and virtually an- 
nulled through the influence of a foreign bride 
and an unworthy favorite. 

Perhaps he felt that he was wrong, or per- 



1625.] Buckingham. 93 

The king promises every thing. His insincerity. 

haps his answers were all framed for him by 
his Privy Council. At all events, they were 
entirely favorable to the demands of the Com- 
mons. He promised every thing. In many 
things he went even beyond their demands. It 
is admitted, however, on all hands, that, so far 
as he himself had any agency in making these 
replies, he was not really sincere. He himself, 
and Buckingham, were very eager to get sup- 
plies. Buckingham was admiral of the fleet, 
and had a great desire to enlarge the force at 
his command, with a view to the performing of 
some great exploit hi the war. It is under- 
stood, therefore, that the king intended his re- 
plies as promises merely. At any rate, the 
promises were made. The Commons were 
called into the great hall again, at Christ 
Church, where the Peers assembled, and the 
king's answers were read to them. Bucking- 
ham joined in this policy of attempting to con- 
ciliate the Commons. He went into their as- 
sembly and made a long speech, explaining and 
justifying his conduct, and apologizing, hi some 
sense, for what might seem to be wrong. 

The Commons returned to their place of de- 
liberation, but they were not satisfied. They 
wanted something besides promises. Some 



94 King- Charles I, [1625. 

Commons not satisfied. Parliament dissolved. New one called. 

were in favor of granting supplies " in grati- 
tude to his majesty for his gracious answer." 
Others thought differently. They did not see 
the necessity for raising money for this foreign 
war. They had greater enemies at home 
(meaning Buckingham and popery) than they 
had abroad. Besides, if the king would stop 
his waste and extravagance in bestowing hon- 
ors and rewards, there would be money enough 
for all necessary uses. In a word, there was 
much debate, but nothing done. The king, 
after a short time, sent a message to them urg- 
ing them to come to a decision. They sent 
him back a declaration which showed that they 
did not intend to yield. Their language, how- 
ever, was of the most humble character. They 
called him " their dread sovereign," and them- 
selves " his poor commons." The king was 
displeased with them, and dissolved the Parlia- 
ment. They, of course, immediately became 
private citizens, and dispersed to their homes. 

After trying some ineffectual attempts to raise 
money by his own royal prerogatives and pow- 
ers, the king called a new Parliament, taking 
some curious precautions to keep out of it such 
persons as he thought would oppose his plans. 
The Earl of Bristol, whom Buckingham had 



1628.] Buckingham. 95 

Subterfuges of the king. Parliament again dissolved. 

been so jealous of, considering him as his rival, 
was an influential member of the House of 
Peers. Charles and Buckingham agreed to 
omit him in sending out the royal writs to 
summon the peers. He petitioned Parliament, 
claiming a right to his seat. Charles then sent 
him his writ, but gave bim a command, as his 
sovereign, not to attend the session. He also 
selected four of the prominent men in the House 
of Commons, men whom he considered most 
influential in opposition to him and to Buck- 
ingham, and appointed them to offices which 
would call them away from London ; and as it 
was the understanding in those days that the 
sovereign had a right to command the services 
of his subjects, they were obliged to go. The 
king hoped, by these and similar means, to di- 
minish the influence against him in Parliament, 
and to get a majority in his favor. But his 
plans did not succeed. Such measures only 
irritated the House and the country. After 
another struggle, this Parliament was dissolv- 
ed too. 

Things went on so for four or five years, the 
breach between the king and the people grow- 
ing wider and wider. Within this time there 
were four Parliaments called, and, after various 



96 King Charles I. [1628. 

The breach between the king and the Parliament widens. 

contentions with them, they were, one after an- 
other, dissolved. The original subject of dis- 
agreement, viz., the growing influence of the 
Catholics, was not the only one. Other points 
came up, growing out of the king's use of his pre- 
rogative, and his irregular and, as they thought, 
illegal attempts to interfere with their freedom 
of action. The king, or, rather, Buckingham 
using the king's name, resorted to all sorts of 
contrivances to accomplish this object. For 
instance, it had long been the custom, in case 
any member of the House of Peers was absent, 
for him to give authority to any friend of his, 
who was also a member, to vote for him. This 
authority was called a proxy. This word is 
supposed to be derived from procuracy ', which 
means action in the place of, and in behalf of, 
another. Buckingham induced a great num- 
ber of the peers to give him their proxies. He 
did this by rewards, honors, and various other 
influences, and he found so many willing to 
yield to these inducements, that at one time he 
had thirty or forty proxies in his hands. Thus, 
on a question arising in the House of Lords, he 
could give a very large majority of votes. The 
House, after murmuring for some time, and ex- 
pressing much discontent and vexation at this 



1628.] Buckingham. 97 

Impeachment of Buckingham. The king interferes. 

state of things, finally made a law that no mem- 
ber of the House should ever have power to use 
more than two proxies. 

One of the Parliaments which King Charles 
assembled at length brought articles of impeach- 
ment against Buckingham, and a long contest 
arose on this subject. An impeachment is a 
trial of a high officer of state for maladministra- 
tion of his office. All sorts of charges were 
brought against Buckingham, most of which 
were true. The king considered their inter- 
fering to call one of his ministers to account as 
wholly intolerable. He sent them orders to dis- 
miss that subject from their deliberations, and 
to proceed immediately with their work of lay- 
ing taxes to raise money, or he would dissolve 
the Parliament as he had done before. He re- 
minded them that the Parliaments were entirely 
" in his power for their calling, sitting, and dis- 
solution, and as he found their fruits were for 
good or evil, so they were to continue, or not to 
be." If they would mend their errors and do 
their duty, henceforward he would forgive the 
past ; otherwise they were to expect his irrec- 
oncilable hostility. 

This language irritated instead of alarming 
them. The Commons persisted in their plan 
7 



98 King Charles I. [1628. 

Another dissolution. Buckingham's reckless conduct. 

of impeachment. The king arrested the men 
whom they appointed as managers of the im- 
peachment, and imprisoned them. The Com- 
mons remonstrated, and insisted that Bucking- 
ham should be dismissed from the king's serv- 
ice. The king, instead of dismissing him, took 
measures to have him appointed, in addition to 
all his other offices, Chancellor of the University 
of Cambridge, a very exalted station. Parlia- 
ment remonstrated. The king, in retaliation, 
dissolved the Parliament. 

Thus things went on from bad to worse, and 
from worse to worse again ; the chief cause of 
the difficulties, in almost all cases, being trace- 
able to Buckingham's reckless and arbitrary 
conduct. He was continually doing something 
in the pursuit of his own ends, by the rash and 
heedless exercise of the vast powers committed 
to him, to make extensive and irreparable mis- 
chief. At one time he ordered a part of the 
fleet over to the coast of France, to enter the 
French service, the sailors expecting that they 
were to be employed against the Spaniards. 
They found, however, that, instead of going 
against the Spaniards, they were to be sent to 
Rochelle. Rochelle was a town in France in 
possession of the Protestants, and the King of 



1628.] Buckingham. 99 

The Round Robin. Return of the English fleet. 

France wanted to subdue them. The sailors 
sent a remonstrance to their commander, beg- 
ging not to be forced to fight against their 
brother Protestants. This remonstrance was, 
in form, what is called a Round Robin. 

In a Round Robin a circle is drawn, the pe- 
tition or remonstrance is written within it, and 
the names are written all around it, to prevent 
any one's having to take the responsibility of 
being the first signer. When the commander 
of the fleet received the Round Robin, instead 
of being offended, he inquired into the facts, 
and finding that the case was really as the 
Round Robin represented it, he broke away 
from the French command and returned to En- 
gland. He said he would rather be hanged in 
England for disobeying orders than to fight 
against the Protestants of France. 

Buckingham might have known that such a 
spirit as this in Englishmen was not to be tri- 
fled with. But he knew nothing, and thought 
of nothing, except that he wanted to please and 
gratify the French government. When the 
fleet, therefore, arrived in England, he peremp- 
torily ordered it back, and he resorted to all 
sorts of pretexts and misrepresentations of the 
facts to persuade the officers and men that they 



100 King Charles I. [1628. 

The officers and men desert. Expedition to Spain. 

were not to be employed against the Protest- 
ants. The fleet accordingly went back, and 
when they arrived, they found that Bucking- 
ham had deceived them. They were ordered 
to Rochelle. One of the ships broke away and 
returned to England. The officers and men 
deserted from the other ships and got home. 
The whole armament was disorganized, and the 
English people, who took sides with the sailors, 
were extremely exasperated against Bucking- 
ham for his blind and blundering recklessness, 
and against the king for giving such a man the 
power to do his mischief on such an extensive 
scale. 

At another time the duke and the king con- 
trived to fit out a fleet of eighty sail to make a 
descent upon the coast of Spain. It caused 
them great trouble to get the funds for this ex- 
pedition, as they had to collect them, in a great 
measure, by various methods depending on the 
king's prerogative, and not by authority of Par- 
liament. Thus the whole country were dis- 
satisfied and discontented in respect to the fleet 
before it was ready to sail. Then, as if this 
was not enough, Buckingham overlooked all the 
officers in the navy in selecting a commander, 
and put an officer of the army in charge of it ; 



1628.] Buckingham. 101 

Buckingham's egregious folly. The expedition ends in disaster. 

a man whose whole experience had been ac- 
quired in wars on the land. The country 
thought that Buckingham ought to have taken 
the command himself, as lord high admiral; 
and if not, that he ought to have selected his 
commander from the ranks of the service em- 
ployed. Thus the fleet set off on the expedi- 
tion, all on board burning with indignation 
against the arbitrary and absurd management 
of the favorite. The result of the expedition 
was also extremely disastrous. They had an 
excellent opportunity to attack a number of 
ships, which would have made a very rich prize ; 
but the soldier-commander either did not know, 
or did not dare to do, his duty. He finally, 
however, effected a landing, and took a castle, 
but the sailors found a great store of wine there, 
and went to drinking and carousing, breaking 
through all discipline. The commander had to 
get them on board again immediately, and come 
away. Then he conceived the plan of going to 
intercept what were called the Spanish galleons, 
which were ships employed to bring home sil- 
ver from the mines in America, which the Span- 
iards then possessed. On further thoughts he 
concluded to give up this idea, on account of 
the plague, which, as he said, broke out in his 

12 



102 King Charles 1. [1628. 

Buckingham's quarrel with Richelieu. He resolves on war. 

ships. So he came back to England with his 
fleet disorganized, demoralized, and crippled, 
and covered with military disgrace. The peo- 
ple of England charged all this to Buckingham. 
Still the king persisted in retaining him. It 
was his prerogative to do so. 

After a while Buckingham got into a per- 
sonal quarrel with Richelieu, who was the lead- 
ing manager of the French government, and he 
resolved that England should make war upon 
France. To alter the whole political position 
of such an empire as that of Great Britain, in 
respect to peace and war, and to change such a 
nation as France from a friend to an enemy, 
would seem to be quite an undertaking for a 
single man to attempt, and that, too, without 
having any reason whatever to assign, except a 
personal quarrel with a minister about a love af- 
fair. But so it was. Buckingham undertook 
it. It was the king's prerogative to make peace 
or war, and Buckingham ruled the king. 

He contrived various ways of fomenting ill 
will. One was, to alienate the mind of the king 
from the queen. He represented to him that 
the queen's French servants were getting to be 
very disrespectful and insolent in their treat- 
ment of him, and finally persuaded him to 



1628.] Buckingham. 103 

The French servants dismissed. War declared against France. 

send them all home. So the king went one 
day to Somerset House, which was the queen's 
residence — for it is often the custom in high 
life in Europe for the husband and wife to 
have separate establishments — and requested 
her to summon her French servants into his 
presence, and when they were assembled, he 
told them that he had concluded to send them 
all home to France. Some of them, he said, 
had acted properly enough, but others had been 
rude and forward, and that he had concluded it 
best to send them all home. The French king, 
on hearing of this, seized a hundred and twenty 
English ships lying in his harbors in retaliation 
of this act, which he said was a palpable viola- 
tion of the marriage contract, as it certainly 
was. Upon this the king declared war against 
France. He did not ask Parliament to act in 
this case at all. There was no Parliament. 
Parliament had been dissolved in a fit of dis- 
pleasure. The whole affair was an exercise of 
the royal prerogative. He did not dare to call 
a Parliament to provide means for carrying on 
the war, but set his Privy Council to devise 
modes of doing it, through this same preroga- 
tive. 

The attempts to raise money in these ways 



104 King Charles I. [1628. 

Expedition to France abortive. Another projected. 

made great trouble. The people resisted, and 
interposed all possible difficulties. However, 
some funds were raised, and a fleet of a hun- 
dred sail, and an army of seven thousand men, 
were got together. Buckingham undertook the 
command of this expedition himself, as there 
had been so much dissatisfaction with his ap- 
pointment of a commander to the other. It 
resulted just as was to be expected in the case 
of seven thousand men, and a hundred ships, 
afloat on the swelling surges of the English 
Channel, under the command of vanity, reck- 
lessness, and folly. The duke came back to 
England in three months, bringing home one 
third of his force. The rest had been lost, with- 
out accomplishing any thing. The measure of 
public indignation against Buckingham was 
now full. 

Buckingham himself walked as loftily and 
proudly as ever. He got up another fleet, and 
was preparing to set sail in it himself, as com- 
mander again. He went to Portsmouth, ac- 
cordingly, for this purpose, Portsmouth being 
the great naval station then, as now, on the 
southern coast of England. Here a man named 
Felton, who had been an officer under the duke 
in the former expedition, and who had been ex- 



1628.] Buckingham. 105 

Assassination of Buckingham. The king not sorry. 

tremely exasperated against him on account of 
some of his management there, and who had 
since found how universal was the detestation 
of him in England, resolved to rid the country 
of such a curse at once. He accordingly took 
his station in the passage-way of the house 
where Buckingham was, armed with a knife. 
Buckingham came out, talking with some 
Frenchmen in an angry manner, having had 
some dispute with them, and Felton thrust the 
knife into his side as he passed, and, leaving it 
in the wound, walked away, no one having 
noticed who did the deed. Buckingham pulled 
out the knife, fell down, and died. The by- 
standers were going to seize one of the French- 
men, when Felton advanced and said, " I am 
the man who did the deed; let no man suffer 
that is innocent." He was taken. They found 
a paper in his hat, saying that he was going to 
destroy the duke, and that he could not sacri- 
fice his life in a nobler cause than by delivering 
his country from so great an enemy. 

King Charles was four miles off at this time. 
They carried him the news. He did not ap- 
pear at all concerned or troubled, but only di- 
rected that the murderer — he ought to have 
said, perhaps, the executioner — should be secur- 



106 King Charles I. [1628. 

Buckingham's monument the universal execration of his countrymen. 

ed, and that the fleet should proceed to sail. 
He also ordered the treasurer to make arrange- 
ments for a splendid funeral. 

The treasurer said, in reply, that a funeral 
would only be a temporary show, and that he 
could hereafter erect a monument at half the 
cost, which would be a much more lasting me- 
morial. Charles acceded. Afterward, when 
Charles spoke to him about the monument, the 
treasurer replied, "What would the world say if 
your majesty were to build a monument to the 
duke before you erect one for your father ? So 
the plan was abandoned, and. Buckingham had 
no other monument than the universal detesta- 
tion of his countrymen. 



1628.] The King's Prerogative. 107 

Difficulty in raising funds. The king's resources. 



Chapter V. 

The King and his Prerogative. 

finHE great difficulty in governing without 
-*- a Parliament was how to raise funds. By 
the old customs and laws of the realm, a tax 
upon the people could only be levied by the ac- 
tion of the House of Commons ; and the great 
object of the king and council during Bucking- 
ham's life, in summoning Parliaments from 
time to time, was to get their aid in this point. 
But as Charles found that one Parliament after 
another withheld the grants, and spent their 
time in complaining of his government, he 
would dissolve them, successively, after ex- 
hausting all possible means of bringing them to 
a compliance with his will. He would then be 
thrown upon his own resources. 

The king had some resources of his own. 
These were certain estates, and lands, and 
other property, in various parts of the country, 
which belonged to the crown, the income of 
which the king could appropriate. But the 
amount which could be derived from this source 



108 King Charles I. [1628. 

Modes of raising money. Parliaments abandoned. 

was very small. Then there were certain other 
modes of raising money, which had been resort- 
ed to by former monarchs, in emergencies, at 
distant intervals, but still in instances so nu- 
merous that the king considered precedents 
enough had been established to make the pow- 
er to resort to these modes a part of the prerog- 
ative of the crown. The people, however, con- 
sidered these acts of former monarchs as irreg- 
ularities or usurpations. They denied the 
king's right to resort to these methods, and 
they threw so many difficulties in the way of 
the execution of his plans, that finally he would 
call another Parliament, and make new efforts 
to lead them to conform to his will. The more 
the experiment was tried, however, the worse 
it succeeded ; and at last the king determined 
to give up the idea of Parliaments altogether, 
and to compel the people to submit to his plans 
of raising money without them. 

The final dissolution of Parliament, by which 
Charles entered upon his new plan of govern- 
ment, was attended with some resistance, and 
the affair made great difficulty. It seems that 
one of the members, a certain Mr. Rolls, had 
had some of his goods seized for payment of 
some of the king's irregular taxes, which he 



1628.] The King's Prerogative. 109 

The government attaches the property of a member of Parliament. 

had refused to pay willingly. Now it had al- 
ways been considered the law of the land in 
England, that the person and the property of a 
member of Parliament were sacred during the 
session, on the ground that while he was giving 
his attendance at a council meeting called by 
his sovereign, he ought to be protected from 
molestation on the part either of his fellow-sub- 
jects or his sovereign, in his person and in his 
property. The House of Commons considered, 
therefore, the seizure of the goods of one of the 
members of the body as a breach of their priv- 
ilege, and took up the subject with a view to 
punish the officers who acted. The king sent 
a message immediately to the House, while 
they were debating the subject, saying that the 
officer acted, in seizing the goods, in obedience 
to his own direct command. This produced 
great excitement and long debates. The king, 
by taking the responsibility of the seizure upon 
himself, seemed to bid the House defiance. 
They brought up this question : " Whether the 
seizing of Mr. Rolls's goods was not a breach 
of privilege ?" When the time came for a de- 
cision, the speaker, that is, the presiding officer, 
refused to put the question to vote. He said 
he had been commanded by the king not to do 



110 King Charles T. [1628 

Confusion in the House of Commons. Resolutions 

it ! The House were indignant, and immedi- 
ately adjourned for two days, probably for the 
purpose of considering, and perhaps consulting 
their constituents on what they were to do in so 
extraordinary an emergency as the king's com- 
ing into their own body and interfering with the 
functions of one of their own proper officers. 

They met on the day to which they had ad- 
journed, prepared to insist on the speaker's 
putting the question. But he, immediately on 
the House coming to order, said that he had re- 
ceived the king's command to adjourn the 
House for a week, and to put no question what- 
ever. He then was going to leave the chair, 
but two of the members advanced to him and 
held him in his place, while they read some res- 
olutions which had been prepared. There was 
great confusion and clamor. Some insisted that 
the House was adjourned, some were determ- 
ined to pass the resolutions. The resolutions 
were very decided. They declared that who- 
ever should counsel or advise the laying of tax- 
es not granted by Parliament, or be an actor or 
instrument in collecting them, should be ac- 
counted an innovator, and a capital enemy to 
the kingdom and Commonwealth. And also, 
that if any person whatever should voluntarily 



1628.] The King's Prerogative. Ill 

The Commons refuse to admit the king's officers. Members imprisoned. 

pay such taxes, he should be counted a capital 
enemy also. These resolutions were read in 
the midst of great uproar. The king was in- 
formed of the facts, and sent for the sergeant 
of the House — one of the highest officers — but 
the members locked the door, and would not 
let the sergeant go. Then the king sent one 
of his own officers to the House with a mes- 
sage. The members kept the door locked, and 
would not let him in until they had disposed of 
the resolutions. Then the House adjourned for 
a week. 

The next day, several of the leading members 
who were supposed to have been active in these 
proceedings were summoned to appear before 
the council. They refused to answer out of 
Parliament for what was said and done by 
them in Parliament. The council sent them 
to prison in the Tower. 

The week passed away, and the time for the 
reassembling of the Houses arrived. It had 
been known, during the week, that the king 
had determined on dissolving Parliament. It 
is usual, in dissolving a Parliament, for the sov- 
ereign not to appear in person, but to send his 
message of dissolution by some person commis- 
sioned to deliver it. This is called dissolving 



112 King Charles I. [1628. 

Dissolution of Parliament. The king in the House of Lords. 

the House by commission. The dissolution is 
always declared in the House of Lords, the 
Commons being summoned to attend. In this 
case, however, the king attended in person. 
He was dressed magnificently in his royal 
robes, and wore his crown. He would not 
deign, however, to send for the Commons. He 
entered the House of Peers, and took his seat 
upon the throne. Several of the Commons, 
however, came in of their own accord, and stood 
below the bar, at the usual place assigned them. 
The king then rose and read the following 
speech. The antiquity of the language gives 
it an air of quaintness now which it did not 
possess then. 

" My Lords, — I never came here upon so un- 
pleasant an occasion, it being the Dissolution of 
a Parliament. Therefore Men may have some 
cause to wonder why I should not rather chuse 
to do this by Commission, it being a general 
Maxim of Kings to leave harsh Commands to 
their Ministers, Themselves only executing 
pleasing things. Yet considering that Justice 
as well consists in Reward and Praise of Vir- 
tue as Punishing of Vice, I thought it neces- 
sary to come here to-day, and to declare to you 



1628.] The King's Prerogative. 113 

The king's speech on dissolving Parliament. 

and all the World, that it was merely the un- 
dutiful and seditious Carriage in the Lower 
House that hath made the Dissolution of this 
Parliament. And you, my Lords, are so far 
from being any Causers of it, that I take as 
much comfort in your dutiful Demeanour, as 
I am justly distasted with their Proceedings. 
Yet, to avoid their Mistakings, let me tell you, 
that it is so far from me to adjudge all the 
House alike guilty, that I know there are many 
there as dutiful subjects as any in the World ; 
it being but some few Vipers among them that 
did cast this Mist of Undutifulness over most 
of their Eyes. Yet to say Truth, there was a 
good Number there that could not be infected 
with this Contagion. 

" To conclude, As those Vipers must look 
for their Reward of Punishment, so you, my 
Lords, may justly expect from me that Favor 
and Protection that a good King oweth to his 
loving and faithful Nobility. And now, my 
Lord Keeper, do what I have commanded you." 

Then the lord keeper pronounced the Par- 
liament dissolved. The lord keeper was the 
keeper of the great seal, one of the highest offi- 
cers of the crown. 

8 K2 



114 King Charles I. [1628. 

The king resolves to do without Parliaments. Forced loans. 

Of course this affair produced a fever of ex- 
citement against the king throughout the whole 
realm. This excitement was kept up and in- 
creased by the trials of the members of Parlia- 
ment who had been imprisoned. The courts 
decided against them, and they were sentenced 
to long imprisonment and to heavy fines. The 
king now determined to do without Parliaments 
entirely ; and, of course, he had to raise money 
by his royal prerogative altogether, as he had 
done, in fact, before, a great deal, during the 
intervals between the successive Parliaments. 
It will not be very entertaining, but it will be 
very useful to the reader to peruse carefully 
some account of the principal methods resorted 
to by the king. In order, however, to diminish 
the necessity for money as much as possible, 
the king prepared to make peace with France 
and Spain ; and as they, as well as England, 
were exhausted with the wars, this was readily 
effected. 

One of the resorts adopted by the king was 
to a system of loans, as they were called, 
though these loans differed from those made by 
governments at the present day, in being appor- 
tioned upon the whole community according to 
their liability to taxation, and in being made, 



1630.] The King's Prerogative. 115 

Monopolies of the necessaries of life. 

in some respects, compulsory. The loan was 
not to be absolutely collected by force, but all 
were expected to lend, and if any refused, they 
were to be required to make oath that they 
would not tell any body else that they had re- 
fused, in order that the influence of their ex- 
ample might not operate upon others. Those 
who did refuse were to be reported to the gov- 
ernment. The officers appointed to collect 
these loans were charged not to make unneces- 
sary difficulty, but to do all in their power to 
induce the people to contribute freely and will- 
ingly. This plan had been before adopted, in 
the time of Buckingham, but it met with little 
success. 

Another plan which was resorted to was the 
granting of what was called monopolies : that 
is, the government would select some import- 
ant and necessary articles in general use, and 
give the exclusive right of manufacturing them 
to certain persons, on their paying a part of the 
profits to the government. Soap was one of 
the articles thus chosen. The exclusive right 
to manufacture it was given to a company, on 
their paying for it. So with leather, salt, and 
various other things. These persons, when 
they once possessed the exclusive right to man- 



116 King Charles I. [1630. 

Tonnage and poundage. 

ufacture an article which the people must use, 
would abuse their power by deteriorating the 
article, or charging enormous prices. Nothing 
prevented their doing this, as they had no com- 
petition. The effect was, that the people were 
injured much more than the government was 
benefited. The plan of granting such monopo- 
lies by governments is now universally odious. 
Another method of taxation was what was 
called tonnage and poundage. This was an 
ancient tax, assessed on merchandise brought 
into the country in ships, like the duties now 
collected at our custom-houses. It was called 
tonnage and poundage because the merchan- 
dise on which it was assessed was reckoned by 
weight, viz., the ton and the pound. A former 
king, Edward III., first assessed it to raise 
money to suppress piracy on the seas. He said 
it was reasonable that the merchandise protect- 
ed should pay the expense of the protection, 
and in proper proportion. The Parliament in 
that day opposed this tax. They did not ob- 
ject to the tax itself, but to the king's assessing 
it by his own authority. However, they grant- 
ed it themselves afterward, and it was regu- 
larly collected. Subsequent Parliaments had 
granted it, and generally made the law, once 



1630.] The King's Prerogative. 117 

Ship money. Origin of these taxes. 

for all, to continue in force during the life of 
the monarch. When Charles commenced his 
reign, the Peers were for renewing the law as 
usual, to continue throughout his reign. The 
Commons wanted to enact the law only for a 
year at a time, so as to keep the power in their 
own hands. The two houses thus disagreed, 
and nothing was done. The king then went 
on to collect the tax without any authority ex- 
cept his own prerogative. 

Another mode of levying money adopted by 
the king was what was called ship money. 
This was a plan for raising a navy by making 
every town contribute a certain number of 
ships, or the money necessary to build them. 
It originated in ancient times, and was at first 
confined to seaport towns which had ships. 
These towns were required to furnish them for 
the king's service, sometimes to be paid for by 
the king, at other times by the country, and at 
other times not to be paid for at all. Charles 
revived this plan, extending it to the whole 
country ; a tax was assessed on all the towns, 
each one being required to furnish money 
enough for a certain number of ships. The 
number at one time required of the city of Lon- 
don was twenty. 



118 King Charles I. [1636. 

John Hampden. He refuses to pay ship money. 

There was one man who made his name 
very celebrated then, and it has continued very 
celebrated since, by his refusal to pay his ship 
money, and by his long and determined contest 
with the government in regard to it, in the 
courts. His name was John Hampden. He 
was a man of fortune and high character. His 
tax for ship money was only twenty shillings, 
but he declared that he would not pay it with- 
out a trial. The king had previously obtained 
the opinion of the judges that he had a right, in 
case of necessity, to assess and collect the ship 
money, and Hampden knew, therefore, that the 
decision would certainly, in the end, be against 
him. He knew, however, that the attention of 
the whole country would be attracted to the 
trial, and that the arguments which he should 
offer to prove that the act of collecting such a 
tax on the part of the king's government was 
illegal and tyrannical, would be spread before 
the country, and would make a great impres- 
sion, although they certainly would not alter 
the opinion of the judges, who, holding their 
offices by the king's appointment, were strong- 
ly inclined to take his side. 

It resulted as Hampden had foreseen. The 
trial attracted universal attention. It was a 



1636.] The King's Prerogative. 119 

Hampden's trial. He is compelled to pay. 

great spectacle to see a man of fortune and 
standing like him, making all those prepara- 
tions, and incurring so great expense, on ac- 
count of a refusal to pay five dollars, knowing, 
too, that he would have to pay it in the end. 
The people of the realm were convinced that 
Hampden was right, and they applauded and 
honored him very greatly for his spirit and 
courage. The trial lasted twelve days. The 
illegality and injustice of the tax were fully ex- 
posed. The people concurred entirely with 
him, and even a part of the judges were con- 
vinced. He was called the patriot Hampden, 
and his name will always be celebrated in En- 
glish history. The whole discussion, however, 
though it produced a great effect at the time, 
would be of no interest now, since it turned 
mainly on the question what the king's rights 
actually were, according to the ancient cus- 
toms and usages of the realm. The question 
before mankind now is a very different one ; 
it is not what the powers and prerogatives of 
government have been in times past, but what 
they ought to be now and in time to come. 

The king's government gained the victory, 
ostensibly, in this contest, and Hampden had 
to pay his money. Very large sums were col- 



120 King Charles I. [1638. 

A fleet raised. Its exploits among the herring-busses. 

lected, also, from others by this tax, and a great 
fleet was raised. The performanees and ex- 
ploits of the fleet had some influence in quiet- 
ing the murmurs of the people. The fleet was 
the greatest which England had ever possessed. 
One of its exploits was to compel the Dutch to 
pay a large sum for the privilege of fishing in 
the narrow seas about Great Britain. The 
Dutch had always maintained that these seas 
were public, and open to all the world ; and 
they had a vast number of fishing boats, called 
herring-busses, that used to resort to them for 
the purpose of catching herring, which they 
made a business of preserving and sending all 
over the world. The English ships attacked 
these fleets of herring-busses, and drove them 
off; and as the Dutch were not strong enough 
to defend them, they agreed to pay a large sum 
annually for the right to fish in the seas in 
question, protesting, however, against it as an 
extortion, for they maintained that the En- 
glish had no control over any seas beyond the 
bays and estuaries of their own shores. 

One of the chief means which Charles de- 
pended upon during the long period that he 
governed without a Parliament, was a certain 
famous tribunal or court called the Star Cham- 



1636.] The King's Prerogative. 121 

Court of the Star Chamber. Its constitution. 

ber. This court was a very ancient one, hav- 
ing been established in some of the earliest 
reigns ; but it never attracted any special at- 
tention until the time of Charles. His govern- 
ment called it into action a great deal, and ex- 
tended its powers, and made it a means of great 
injustice and oppression, as the people thought, 
or, as Charles would have said, a very efficient 
means of vindicating his prerogative, and pun- 
ishing the stubborn and rebellious. 

There were three reasons why this court was 
a more convenient and powerful instrument in 
the hands of the king and his council than any 
of the other courts in the kingdom. First, it 
was, by its ancient constitution, composed of 
members of the council, with the exception of 
two persons, who were to be judges in the oth- 
er courts. This plan of having two judges from 
the common law courts seems to have been 
adopted for the purpose of securing some sort 
of conformity of the Star Chamber decisions 
with the ordinary principles of English juris- 
prudence. But then, as these two law judges 
would always be selected with reference to 
their disposition to carry out the king's plans, 
and as the other members of the court were all 
members of the government itself, of course the 

L 



122 King Charles I. [1636. 

Trial by jury. No jury in the Star Chamber. 

court was almost entirely under governmental 
control. 

The second reason was, that in this court 
there was no jury. There had never been ju- 
ries employed in it from its earliest constitu- 
tion. The English had contrived the plan of 
trial by jury as a defense against the severity 
of government. If a man was accused of 
crime, the judges appointed by the government 
that he had offended were not to be allowed to 
decide whether he was guilty or not. They 
would be likely not to be impartial. The ques- 
tion of his guilt or innocence was to be left to 
twelve men, taken at hazard from the ordinary 
walks of life, and who, consequently, would be 
likely to sympathize with the accused, if they 
saw any disposition to oppress him, rather than 
to join against him with a tyrannical govern- 
ment. Thus the jury, as they said, was a 
great safeguard. The English have always at- 
tached great value to their system of trial by 
jury. The plan is retained in this country, 
though there is less necessity for it under our 
institutions. Now, in the Star Chamber, it 
had never been the custom to employ a jury. 
The members of the court decided the whole 
question ; and as they were entirely in the in- 



1636.] The King's Prerogative. 123 

Crimes tried by the Star Chamber. Origin of the term. 

terest of the government, the government, of 
course, had the fate of every person accused 
under their direct control. 

The third reason consisted in the nature of 
the crimes which it had always been custom- 
ary to try in this court. It had jurisdiction in 
a great variety of cases in which men were 
brought into collision with the government, 
such as charges of riot, sedition, libel, opposi- 
tion to the edicts of the council, and to proc- 
lamations of the king. These and similar cases 
had always been tried by the Star Chamber ; 
and these were exactly the cases which ought 
not to be tried by such a court ; for persons ac- 
cused of hostility to government ought not to 
be tried by government itself. 

There has been a great deal of discussion 
about the origin of the term Star Chamber. 
The hall where the court was held was in a 
palace at Westminster, and there were a great 
many windows in it. Some think that it was 
from this that the court received its name. 
Others suppose it was because the court had 
cognizance of a certain crime, the Latin name 
of which has a close affinity with the word star. 
Another reason is, that certain documents, called 
starra, used to be kept in the hall. The pret- 



324 King Charles I. [1636. 

Immense power of the Court of Star Chamber. 

tiest idea is a sort of tradition that the ceiling 
of the hall was formerly ornamented with stars, 
and that this circumstance gave name to the 
hall. This supposition, however, unfortunate- 
ly, has no better foundation than the others ; for 
there were no stars on the ceiling in Charles's 
time, and there had not been any for a hundred 
years ; nor is there any positive evidence that 
there ever were. However, in the absence of 
any real reason for preferring one of these ideas 
over the other, mankind seem to have wisely 
determined on choosing the prettiest of them, 
so that it is generally agreed that the origin of 
the name was the ancient decoration of the 
ceiling of the hall with gilded stars. 

However this may be, the court of the Star 
Chamber was an engine of prodigious power in 
the hands of Charles's government. It helped 
them in two ways. They could punish their 
enemies, and where these enemies were wealthy, 
they could fill up the treasury of the govern- 
ment by imposing enormous fines upon them. 
Sometimes the offenses for which these fines 
were imposed were not of a nature to deserve 
such severe penalties. For instance, there was 
a law against turning tillage land into pastur- 
age. Land that is tilled supports men. Land 



1636.] The King's Prerogative. 125 

Oppressive fines. King's forests. 

that is pastured supports cattle and sheep. 
The former were a burden, sometimes, to land- 
lords, the latter a means of wealth. Hence 
there was then, as there is now, a tendency in 
England, in certain parts of the country, for 
the landed proprietors to change their tillage 
land to pasture, and thus drive the peasants 
away from their homes. There were laws 
against this, but a great many persons had 
done it notwithstanding. One of these persons 
was fined four thousand pounds ; an enormous 
sum. The rest were alarmed, and made com- 
positions, as they were called ; that is, they 
paid at once a certain sum on condition of not 
being prosecuted. Thirty thousand pounds 
were collected in this way, which was then a 
very large amount. 

There were in those days, as there are now, 
certain tracts of land in England called the 
king's forests, though a large portion of them 
are now without trees. The boundaries of 
these lands had not been very well denned, but 
the government now published decrees specify- 
ing the boundaries, and extending them so far 
as to include, in many cases, the buildings and 
improvements of other proprietors. They then 
prosecuted these proprietors for having en- 

L 2 



126 King Charles I. [1636. 

Offenses against the king and his lords. 

croached, as they called it, upon the crown 
lands, and the Star Chamber assessed very- 
heavy fines upon them. The people said all 
this was done merely to get pretexts to extort 
money from the nation, to make up for the 
want of a Parliament to assess regular taxes ; 
but the government said it was a just and legal 
mode of protecting the ancient and legitimate 
rights of the king. 

In these and similar modes, large sums of 
money were collected as fines and penalties for 
offenses more or less real. In other cases very 
severe punishments were inflicted for various 
sorts of offenses committed against the personal 
dignity of the king, or the great lords of his 
government. It was considered highly import- 
ant to repress all appearance of disrespect or 
hostility to the king. One man got into some 
contention with one of the king's officers, and 
finally struck him. He was fined ten thousand 
pounds. Another man said that a certain arch- 
bishop had incurred the king's displeasure by 
wanting some toleration for the Catholics. 
This was considered a slander against the arch- 
bishop, and the offender was sentenced to be 
fined a thousand pounds, to be whipped, im- 
prisoned, and to stand in the pillory at West- 



1636.] The King's Prerogative. 127 

A gentleman fined for resenting an insult. 

minster, and at three other places in various 
parts of the kingdom. 

A gentleman was following a chase as a 
spectator, the hounds belonging to a noble- 
man. The huntsman, who had charge of the 
hounds, ordered him to keep back, and not 
come so near the hounds ; and in giving him 
this order, spoke, as the gentleman alleged, so 
insolently, that he struck him with his riding- 
whip. The huntsman threatened to complain 
to his master, the nobleman. The gentleman 
said that if his master should justify him in 
such insulting language as he had used, he 
would serve him in the same manner. The 
Star Chamber fined him ten thousand pounds 
for speaking so disrespectfully of a lord. 

By these and similar proceedings, large sums 
of money w T ere collected by the Star Chamber 
for the king's treasury, and all expression of 
discontent and dissatisfaction on the part of the 
people was suppressed. This last policy, how- 
ever, the suppression of expressions of dissatis- 
faction, is always a very dangerous one for any 
government to undertake. Discontent, silenced 
by force, is exasperated and extended. The 
outward signs of its existence disappear, but its 
inward workings become wide-spread and dan- 



128 King Charles I. [1636. 

Murmurs silenced. The kingdom of Scotland. 

gerous, just dn proportion to the weight by 
which the safety-valve is kept down. Charles 
and his court of the Star Chamber rejoiced in 
the power and efficacy of their tremendous tri- 
bunal. They issued proclamations and de- 
crees, and governed the country by means of 
them. They silenced all murmurs. But they 
were, all the time, disseminating through the 
whole length and breadth of the land a deep 
and inveterate enmity to royalty, which ended 
in a revolution of the government, and the de- 
capitation of the king. They stopped the hiss- 
ing of the steam for the time, but caused an ex- 
plosion in the end. 

Charles was King of Scotland as well as of 
England. The two countries were, however, 
as countries, distinct, each having its own laws, 
its own administration, and its own separate 
dominions. The sovereign, however, was the 
same. A king could inherit two Jkingdoms, 
just as a man can, in this country, inherit two 
farms, which may, nevertheless, be at a dis- 
tance from each other, and managed separately. 
Now, although Charles had, from the death of 
his father, exercised sovereignty over the realm 
of Scotland, he had not been crowned, nor had 
even visited Scotland. The people of Scotland 



1633.] The King's Prerogative. 129 

The king visits Scotland. He is crowned there. 

felt somewhat neglected. They murmured 
that their common monarch gave all his atten- 
tion to the sister and rival kingdom. They 
said that if the king did not consider the Scot- 
tish crown worth coming after, they might, 
perhaps, look out for some other way of dispos- 
ing of it. 

The king, accordingly, in 1633, began to 
make preparations for a royal progress into 
Scotland. He first issued a proclamation re- 
quiring a proper supply of provisions to be col- 
lected at the several points of his proposed route, 
and specified the route, and the length of stay 
which he should make in each place. He set 
out on the 13th of May with a splendid reti- 
nue. He stopped at the seats of several of the 
nobility on the way, to enjoy the hospitalities 
and entertainments which they had prepared 
for him. He proceeded so slowly that it was a 
month before he reached the frontier. Here 
all his English servants and retinue retired from 
their posts, and their places were supplied by 
Scotchmen who had been previously appointed, 
and who were awaiting his arrival. He enter- 
ed Edinburgh with great pomp and parade, all 
Scotland flocking to the capital to witness the 
festivities. The coronation took place three 
p 



130 King Charles I. [1633. 

The king returns to London. Increasing discontent. 

days afterward. He met the Scotch Parlia- 
ment, and, for form's sake, took a part in the 
proceedings, so as actually to exercise his royal 
authority as King of Scotland. This being 
over, he was conducted in great state back to 
Berwick, which is on the frontier, and thence 
he returned by rapid journeys to London. 

The king dissolved his last Parliament in 
1629. He had now been endeavoring for four 
or five years to govern alone. He succeeded 
tolerably well, so far as external appearances 
indicated, up to this time. There was, how- 
ever, beneath the surface, a deep-seated discon- 
tent, which was constantly widening and ex- 
tending, and, soon after the return of the king 
from Scotland, real difficulties gradually arose, 
by which he was, in the end, compelled to call 
a Parliament again. What these difficulties 
were will be explained in the subsequent chap- 
ters. 



1633.] Archbishop Laud. 131 

Archbishop Laud. The Church. 



Chapter VI. 

Archbishop Laud. 

|"N getting so deeply involved in difficulties 
-*- with his people, King Charles did not act 
alone. He had, as we have already explained, 
a great deal of help. There were many men 
of intelligence and rank who entertained the 
same opinions that he did, or who were, at 
least, willing to adopt them for the sake of 
office and power. These men he drew around 
him. He gave them office and power, and they 
joined him in the efforts he made to defend and 
enlarge the royal prerogative, and to carry on 
the government by the exercise of it. One of 
the most prominent and distinguished of these 
men was Laud. 

The reader must understand that the Church, 
in England, is very different from any thing 
that exists under the same name in this coun- 
try. Its bishops and clergy are supported by 
revenues derived from a vast amount of prop- 
erty which belongs to the Church itself. This 
property is entirely independent of all control 



132 King Charles I. [1633-6. 

System of the English Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury. 

by the people of the parishes. The clergyman, 
as soon as he is appointed, comes into posses- 
sion of it in his own right ; and he is not ap- 
pointed by the people, but by some nobleman 
or high officer of state, who has inherited the 
right to appoint the clergyman of that particu- 
lar parish. There are bishops, also, who have 
very large revenues, likewise independent ; and 
over these bishops is one great dignitary, who 
presides in lofty state over the whole system. 
This officer is called the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. There is one other archbishop, called the 
Archbishop of York ; but his realm is much 
more limited and less important. The Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury is styled the Lord Pri- 
mate of all England. His rank is above that 
of all the peers of the realm. He crowns the 
kings. He has two magnificent palaces, one at 
Canterbury and one at London, for his resi- 
dences, and has very large revenues to main- 
tain a style of living in accordance with his 
rank. He has the superintendence of all the 
affairs of the Church for the whole realm, ex- 
cept a small portion pertaining to the archbish- 
opric of York. His palace in London is on the 
bank of the Thames, opposite Westminster. 
It is called Lambeth Palace. 



1633-6.] Archbishop Laud. 135 

Canterbury. The Cathedral. Officers. 

The city of Canterbury, which is the chief 
seat of his dominion, is southeast of London, 
not very far from the sea. The Cathedral is 
there, which is the archbishop's church. It is 
more than five hundred feet in length, and the 
tower is nearly two hundred and fifty feet high. 
The magnificence of the architecture and the 
decorations of the building correspond with its 
size. There is a large company of clergymen 
and other officers attached to the service of the 
Cathedral. They are more than a hundred 
in number. The palace of the archbishop is 
near. 

The Church was thus, in the days of Charles, 
a complete realm of itself, with its own prop- 
erty, its own laws, its own legislature, and 
courts, and judges, its own capital, and its own 
monarch. It was entirely independent of the 
mass of the people in all these respects, as all 
these things were entirely controlled by the 
bishops and clergy, and the clergy were gener- 
ally appointed by the noblemen, and the bish- 
ops by the king. This made the system almost 
entirely independent of the community at large ; 
and as there was organized under it a vast 
amount of wealth, and influence, and power, 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, who presided 



136 King Charles I. [1633-6. 

Laud made archbishop. His business capacity. 

over the whole, was as great in authority as he 
was in rank and honor. Now Laud was Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury. 

King Charles had made him so. He had ob- 
served that Laud, who had been advanced to 
some high stations in the Church by his father, 
King James, was desirous to enlarge and 
strengthen the powers and prerogatives of the 
Church, just as he himself was endeavoring to 
do in respect to those of the throne. He ac- 
cordingly promoted him from one post of influ- 
ence and honor to another, until he made him 
at last Archbishop of Canterbury. Thus he 
was placed upon the summit of ecclesiastical 
grandeur and power. 

He commenced his work, however, of strength- 
ening and aggrandizing the Church, before he 
was appointed to this high office. He was 
Bishop of London for many years, which is a 
post, in some respects, second only to that of 
Archbishop of Canterbury. While in this sta- 
tion, he was appointed by the king to many 
high civil offices. He had great capacity for 
the transaction of business, and for the fulfill- 
ment of high trusts, whether of Church or state. 
He was a man of great integrity and moral 
worth. He was stern and severe in manners, 



1633-6.] Archbishop Laud. 137 

Laud's character. Episcopacy in England and the United States. 

but learned and accomplished. His whole soul 
was bent on what he undoubtedly considered 
the great duty of his life, supporting and con- 
firming the authority of the king, and the pow- 
er and influence of English Episcopacy. Not- 
withstanding his high qualifications, however, 
many persons were jealous of the influence 
which he possessed with the king, and murmur- 
ed against the appointment of a churchman to 
such high offices of state. 

There was another source of hostility to 
Laud. There was a large part of the people 
of England who were against the Church of 
England altogether. They did not like a sys- 
tem in which all power and influence came, 
as it were, from above downward. The king 
made the noblemen, the noblemen made the 
bishops, the bishops made the clergy, and the 
clergy ruled their flocks ; the flocks themselves 
having nothing to say or do but to submit. It 
is very different with Episcopacy in this coun- 
try. The people here choose the clergy, and 
the clergy choose the bishops, so that power in 
the Church, as in every thing else here, goes 
from below upward. The two systems, when 
at rest, look very similar in the two countries ; 
but when in action, the current of life flows in 
10 M2 



138 King Charles I. [1633-6. 

Opposition to the Established Church. 

contrary directions, making the two diametri- 
cally opposite to each other in spirit and power. 
In England, Episcopacy is an engine by which 
the people are ecclesiastically governed. Here, 
it is the machinery by which they govern. 
Whatever the forms are, the fact must be that 
the people govern here. 

Now in England there was a large and in- 
creasing party who hated and opposed the 
whole Episcopal system. Laud, to counteract 
this tendency, attempted to define, and enlarge, 
and extend that system as far as possible. He 
made the most of all the ceremonies of worship, 
and introduced others, which were, indeed, not 
exactly new, but rather ancient ones revived. 
He did this conscientiously, no doubt, thinking 
that these forms of devotion were adapted to 
impress the soul of the worshiper, and lead him 
to feel, in his heart, the reverence which his 
outward action expressed. Many of the people, 
liowever, bitterly opposed these things. They 
considered it a return to popery. The more 
that Laud, and those who acted with him, at- 
tempted to magnify the rites and the powers of 
the Church, the more these persons began to 
abhor every thing of the kind. They wanted 
Christianity itself, in its purity, uncontaminat- 



1633-6.] Archbishop Laud. 139 

The Puritans. Disputes about the services of the Church. 

ed, as they said, by these popish and idolatrous 
forms. They were called Puritans. 

There were a great many things which seem 
to us at the present day of very little conse- 
quence, which were then the subjects of endless 
disputes and of the most bitter animosity. 
For instance, one point was whether the place 
where the communion was to be administered 
should be called the communion table or the 
altar ; and in what part of the church it should 
stand ; and whether the person officiating 
should be called a priest or a clergyman ; and 
whether he should wear one kind of dress or 
another. Great importance was attached to 
these things ; but it was not on their own ac- 
count, but on account of their bearing on the 
question whether the Lord's Supper was to be 
considered only a ceremony commemorative of 
Christ's death, or whether it was, whenever 
celebrated by a regularly authorized priest, a 
real renewal of the sacrifice of Christ, as the 
Catholics maintained. Calling the communion 
table an altar, and the officiating minister a 
priest, and clothing him in a sacerdotal garb, 
countenanced the idea of a renewal of the sac- 
rifice of Christ. Laud and his coadjutors urged 
the adoption of all these and similar usages. 



140 King Charles I. [1633-6. 

Controversy about amusements on Sunday. 

The Puritans detested them, because they de- 
vested and abhorred the doctrine which they 
seemed to imply. 

Another great topic of controversy was the 
subject of amusements. It is a very singular 
circumstance, that in those branches of the 
Christian Church where rites and forms are 
most insisted upon, the greatest latitude is al- 
lowed in respect to the gayeties and amusements 
of social life. Catholic Paris is filled with the- 
aters and dancing, and the Sabbath is a holi- 
day. In London, on the other hand, the num- 
ber of theaters is small, dancing is considered 
as an amusement of a more or less equivocal 
character, and the Sabbath is rigidly observed ; 
and among all the simple Democratic churches 
of New England, to dance or to attend the the- 
ater is considered almost morally wrong. It 
was just so in the days of Laud. He wished 
to encourage amusements among the people, 
particularly on Sunday, after church. This 
was partly for the purpose of counteracting the 
efforts of those who were inclined to Puritan 
views. They attached great importance to 
their sermons and lectures, for in them they 
could address and influence the people. But 
by means of these addresses, as Laud thought, 



1633-6.] Archbishop Laud. 141 



Laud's contention with the judges. 



they put ideas of insubordination into the minds 
of the people, and encroached on the authority 
of the Church and of the king. To prevent 
this, the High-Church party wished to exalt the 
prayers in the Church service, and to give as 
little place and influence as possible to the ser- 
mon, and to draw off the attention of the peo- 
ple from the discussions and exhortations of the 
preachers by encouraging games, dances, and 
amusements of all kinds. 

The judges in one of the counties, at a regu- 
lar court held by them, once passed an order 
forbidding certain revels and carousals connect- 
ed with the Church service, on account of the 
immoralities and disorders, as they alleged, to 
which they gave rise ; and they ordered that 
public notice to this effect should be given by 
the bishop. The archbishop (Laud) considered 
this an interference on the part of the civil 
magistrates with the powers and prerogatives 
of the Church. He had the judges brought be- 
fore the council, and censured there ; and they 
were required by the council to revoke their 
order at the next court. The judges did so, but 
in such a way as to show that they did it sim- 
ply in obedience to the command of the king's 
council. The people, or at least all of them 



142 King Charles I. [1633-6. 

Severe punishments for expression of opinion. 

who were inclined to Puritan views, sided with 
the judges, and were more strict in abstaining 
from all such amusements on Sunday than 
ever. This, of course, made those who were 
n,i the side of Laud more determined to pro- 
mote these gayeties. Thus, as neither party 
pursued, in the least degree, a generous or con- 
ciliatory course toward the other, the difference 
between them widened more and more. The 
people of the country were fast becoming either 
bigoted High-Churchmen or fanatical Puritans. 

Laud employed the power of the Star Cham- 
ber a great deal in the accomplishment of his 
purpose of enforcing entire submission to the 
ecclesiastical authority of the Church. He 
even had persons sometimes punished very se- 
verely for words of disrespect, or for writings in 
which they censured what they considered the 
tyranny under which they suffered. This se- 
vere punishment for the mere expression of 
opinion only served to fix the opinion more 
firmly, and disseminate it more widely. Some- 
times men would glory in their sufferings for 
this cause, and bid the authorities defiance. 

One man, for instance, named Lilburne, was 
brought before the Star Chamber, charged with 
publishing seditious pamphlets. Now, in all 



1633-6.] Archbishop Laud. 143 

Case of Lilburne. His indomitable spb.it. 

ordinary courts of justice, no man is called 
upon to say any thing against himself. Unless 
his crime can be proved by the testimony of 
others, it can not be proved at all. But in the 
Star Chamber, whoever was brought to trial 
had to take an oath at first that he would an- 
swer all questions asked, even if they tended to 
criminate himself. When they proposed this 
oath to Lilburne, he refused to take it. They 
decided that this was contempt of court, and 
sentenced him to be whipped, put in the pillory, 
and imprisoned. "While they were whipping 
him, he spent the time in making a speech to 
the spectators against the tyranny of bishops, 
referring to Laud, whom he considered as the 
author of these proceedings. He continued to 
do the same while in the pillory. As he passed 
along, too, he distributed copies of the pamph- 
lets which he was prosecuted for writing. The 
Star Chamber, hearing that he was harangu- 
ing the mob, ordered him to be gagged. This 
did not subdue him. He began to stamp with 
his foot and gesticulate ; thus continuing to ex- 
press his indomitable spirit of hostility to the 
tyranny which he opposed. This single case 
would be of no great consequence alone, but it 
was not alone. The attempt to put Lilburne 



144 King Charles I. [1633-6. 

The young lawyers' toast. Ingenious plea. 

down was a symbol of the experiment of coer- 
cion which Charles in the state, and Laud in 
the Church, were trying upon the whole na- 
tion; it was a symbol both in respect to the 
means employed, and to the success attained 
by them. 

One curious case is related, which turned out 
more fortunately than usual for the parties ac- 
cused. Some young lawyers in London were 
drinking at an evening entertainment, and 
among other toasts they drank confusion to the 
Archbishop of Canterbury. One of the wait- 
ers, who heard them, mentioned the circum- 
stance, and they were brought before the Star 
Chamber. Before their trial came on, they ap- 
plied to a certain nobleman to know what they 
should do. "Where was the waiter," asked 
the nobleman, "when you drank the toast?" 
" At the door." " Oh ! very well, then," said 
he ; " tell the court that he only heard a part 
of the toast, as he was going out ; and that the 
words really were, l Confusion to the Archbishop 
of Canterbury's enemies.' " By this ingenious 
plea, and by means of a great appearance of 
humility and deference in the presence of the 
archbishop, the lawyers escaped with a repri- 
mand. 



1633-6.] Archbishop Laud. 145 

Laud's designs upon the Scotch Church. 

Laud was not content with establishing and 
confirming throughout all England the author- 
ity of the Church, but he wanted to extend the 
same system to Scotland. "When King Charles 
went to Scotland to be crowned, he took Laud 
with him. He was pleased with Laud's en- 
deavors to enlarge and confirm the powers of 
the Church, and wished to aid him in the work. 
There were two reasons for this. One was, that 
the same class of men, the Puritans, were the 
natural enemies of both, so that the king and 
the archbishop were drawn together by having 
one common foe. Then, as the places in the 
Church were not hereditary, but were filled by 
appointments from the king and the great no- 
bles, whatever power the Church could get into 
its hands could be employed by the king to 
strengthen his own authority, and keep his sub- 
jects in subjection. 

"We must not, however, censure the ting and 
his advisers too strongly for this plan. They 
doubtless were ambitious ; they loved power ; 
they wanted to bear sway, unresisted and un- 
questioned, over the whole realm. But then 
the king probably thought that the exercise of 
such a government was necessary for the order 
and prosperity of the realm, besides being his 
10 N 



146 King Charles I. [1633-6. 

Motives of Laud and the king. The Liturgy. 

inherent and indefeasible right. Good and bad 
motives were doubtless mingled here, as in all 
human action ; but then the king was, in the 
main, doing what he supposed it was his duty 
to do. In proposing, therefore, to build up the 
Church in Scotland, and to make it conform to 
the English Church in its rites and ceremonies, 
he and Laud doubtless supposed that they were 
going greatly to improve the government of the 
sister kingdom. 

There was in those days, as now, in the En- 
glish Church, a certain prescribed course of 
prayers, and psalms, and Scripture readings, 
for each day, to be read from a book by the 
minister. This was called the Liturgy. The 
Puritans did not like a liturgy. It tied men 
up, and did not leave the individual mind of the 
preacher at liberty to range freely, as they 
wished it to do, in conducting the devotional 
services. It was on this very account that the 
friends of strong government did like it. They 
wanted to curtail this liberty, which, however, 
they called license, and which they thought 
made mischief. In extemporaneous prayers, it 
is often easy to see that the speaker is aiming 
much more directly at producing a salutary ef- 
fect on the minds of his hearers than at simply 



1633-6.] Archbishop Laud. 147 

The Scotch. Laud prepares them a Liturgy. 

presenting petitions to the Supreme Being. 
But, notwithstanding this evil, the existence of 
which no candid man can deny, the enemies of 
forms, who are generally friends of the largest 
liberty, think it best to leave the clergyman 
free. The friends of forms, however, prefer 
forms on this very account. They like what 
they consider the wholesome and salutary re- 
straints which they impose. 

Now there has always been a great spirit of 
freedom in the Scottish mind. That people have 
ever been unwilling to submit to coercion or 
restraints. There is probably no race of men 
on earth that would make worse slaves than the 
Scotch. Their sturdy independence and determ- 
ination to be free could never be subdued. In 
the days of Charles they were particularly fond 
of freely exercising their own minds, and of 
speaking freely to others on the subject of reli- 
gion. They thought for themselves, sometimes 
right and sometimes wrong ; but they would 
think, and they would express their thoughts ; 
and their being thus unaccustomed, in one par- 
ticular, to submit to restraints, rendered them 
more difficult to be governed in others. Laud 
thought, consequently, that they, particularly, 
needed a Liturgy. He prepared one for them. 



148 King Charles I. [1637. 

Scenes of tumult. Preaching to an empty church. 

It was varied somewhat from the English Lit- 
urgy, though it was substantially the same. 
The king proclaimed it, and required the bish- 
ops to see that it was employed in all the 
churches in Scotland. 

The day for introducing the Liturgy was the 
signal for riots all over the kingdom. In the 
principal church in Edinburgh they called out 
" A pope ! A pope /" when the clergyman came 
in with his book and his pontifical robes. The 
bishop ascended the pulpit to address the peo- 
ple to appease them, and a stool came flying 
through the air at his head. The police then 
expelled the congregation, and the clergyman 
went through with the service of the Liturgy 
in the empty church, the, congregation outside, 
in great tumult, accompanying the exercises 
with cries of disapprobation and resentment, 
and with volleys of stones against the doors and 
windows. 

The Scotch sent a sort of embassador to Lon- 
don to represent to the king that the hostility 
to the Liturgy was so universal and so strong 
that it could not be enforced. But the king 
and his council had the same conscientious 
scruples about giving up in a contest with sub- 
jects, that a teacher or a parent, in our day, 



1637.] Archbishop Laud. 149 

The Scotch rebel. The king's fool. 

would feel in the case of resistance from chil- 
dren or scholars. The king sent down a proc- 
lamation that the observance of the Liturgy 
must be insisted on. The Scotch prepared to 
resist. They sent delegates to Edinburgh, and 
organized a sort of government. They raised 
armies. They took possession of the king's 
castles. They made a solemn covenant, bind- 
ing themselves to insist on religious freedom. 
In a word, all Scotland was in rebellion. 

It was the custom in those days to have, con- 
nected with the court, some half-witted person, 
who used to be fantastically dressed, and to have 
great liberty of speech, and whose province was 
to amuse the courtiers. He was called the king's 
jester, or, more commonly, the fool. The name 
of King Charles's fool was Archy. After this 
rebellion broke out, and all England was aghast 
at the extent of the mischief which Laud's Lit- 
urgy had done, the fool, seeing the archbishop go 
by one day, called out to him, " My lord ! who 
is the fool now?" The archbishop, as if to 
leave no possible doubt in respect to the proper 
answer to the question, had poor Archy tried 
and punished. His sentence was to have his 
coat pulled up over his head, and to be dis- 
missed from the king's service. Had the arch- 

N2 



150 King Charles I. [1637. 

A general assembly called in Scotland. 

bishop let it pass, it would have ended with a 
laugh in the street ; but by resenting it, he 
gave it notoriety, caused it to be recorded, and 
has perpetuated the memory of the jest to all 
future times. He ought to have joined in the 
laugh, and rewarded Archy on the spot for so 
good a witticism. 

The Scotch, besides organizing a sort of civil 
government, took measures for summoning a 
general assembly of their Church. This as- 
sembly met at Glasgow. The nobility and 
gentry flocked to Glasgow at the time of the 
meeting, to encourage and sustain the assem- 
bly, and to manifest their interest in the pro- 
ceedings. The assembly very deliberately went 
to work, and, not content with taking a stand 
against the Liturgy which Charles had imposed, 
they abolished the fabric of Episcopacy — that 
is, the government of bishops — altogether. 
Thus Laud's attempt to perfect and confirm 
the system resulted in expelling it completely 
from the kingdom. It has never held up its 
head in Scotland since. They established 
Presbyterianism in its place, which is a sort of 
republican system, the pastors being all offi- 
cially equal to each other, though banded to- 
gether under a common government adminis- 
tered by themselves. 



1639.] Archbishop Laud. 151 



The king's expedition to the north. 



The king was determined to put down this 
rebellion at all hazards. He had made such 
good use of the various irregular modes of rais- 
ing money which have been already described, 
and had been so economical in the use of it, 
that he had now quite a sum of money in his 
treasury ; and had it not been for the attempt 
to enforce the unfortunate Liturgy upon the 
people of Scotland, he might, perhaps, have 
gone on reigning without a Parliament to the 
end of his days. He had now about two hund- 
red thousand pounds, by means of which, to- 
gether with what he could borrow, he hoped to 
make one single demonstration of force which 
would bring the rebellion to an end. He raised 
an army and equipped a fleet. He issued a 
proclamation summoning all the peers of the 
realm to attend him. He moved with this great 
concourse from London toward the north, the 
whole country looking on as spectators to be- 
hold the progress of this great expedition, by 
which their monarch was going to attempt to 
subdue again his other kingdom. 

Charles advanced to the city of York, the 
great city of the north of England. Here he 
paused and established his court, with all pos- 
sible pomp and parade. His design was to im- 



152 King Charles I. 


[1639. 


The army at York. 


The oath. 



press the Scots with such an idea of the great- 
ness of the power which was going to over- 
whelm them as to cause them to submit at 
once. But all this show was very hollow and 
delusive. The army felt a greater sympathy 
with the Scots than they did with the king. 
The complaints against Charles's government 
were pretty much the same in both countries. 
A great many Scotchmen came to York while 
the king was there, and the people from all the 
country round flocked thither too, drawn by the 
gay spectacles connected with the presence of 
such a court and army. The Scotchmen dis- 
seminated their complaints thus among the 
English people, and finally the king and his 
council, finding indications of so extensive a 
disaffection, had a form of an oath prepared, 
which they required all the principal persons to 
take, acknowledging allegiance to Charles, and 
renouncing their having any intelligence or cor- 
respondence with the enemy. The Scotchmen 
all took the oath very readily, though some of 
the English refused. 

At any rate, the state of things was not such 
as to intimidate the Scotch, and lead them, as 
the king had hoped, to sue for peace. So he 
concluded to move on toward the borders. He 



1639.] Archbishop Laud. 153 

The king's march. Artifice of the Scots. 

went to Newcastle, and thence to Berwick. 
From Berwick he moved along the banks of the 
Tweed, which here forms the boundary between 
the two kingdoms, and, rinding a suitable place 
for such a purpose, the king had his royal tent 
pitched, and his army encamped around him. 

Now, as King Charles had undertaken to sub- 
due the Scots by a show of force, it seems they 
concluded to defend themselves by a show too, 
though theirs was a cheaper and more simple 
contrivance than his. They advanced with 
about three thousand men to a place distant 
perhaps seven miles from the English camp. 
The king sent an army of five thousand men to 
attack them. The Scotch, in the mean time, 
collected great herds of cattle "from all the coun- 
try around, as the historians say, and arranged 
them behind their little army in such a way 
as to make the whole appear a vast body of 
soldiers. A troop of horsemen, who were the 
advanced part of the English army, came in 
sight of this formidable host first, and, finding 
their numbers so much greater than they had 
anticipated, they fell back, and ordered the ar- 
tillery and foot-soldiers who were coming up to 
retreat, and all together came back to the en- 
campment. There were two or three military 
11 



154 King Charles I. [1639. 

The compromise. The army disbanded. 

enterprises of similar character, in which noth- 
ing was done but to encourage the Scotch and 
dishearten the English. In fact, neither offi- 
cers, soldiers, nor king wanted to proceed to ex- 
tremities. The officers and soldiers did not 
wish to fight the Scotch, and the king, know- 
ing the state of his army, did not really dare to 
do it. 

Finally, all the king's council advised him to 
give up the pretended contest, and to settle the 
difficulty by a compromise. Accordingly, in 
June, negotiations were commenced, and be- 
fore the end of the month articles were signed. 
The king probably made the best terms he, 
could, but it was universally considered that 
the Scots gained the victory. r The king dis- 
banded his army, and returned to London. 
The Scotch leaders went back to Edinburgh. 
Soon after this the Parliament and the General 
Assembly of the Church convened, and these 
bodies took the whole management of the realm 
into their own hands. They sent commission- 
ers to London to see and confer with the king, 
and these commissioners seemed almost to as- 
sume the character of embassadors from a for- 
eign state. These negotiations, and the course 
which affairs were taking in Scotland, soon led 



1639.] Archbishop Laud. 155 

The king's difficulties. He thinks of a Parliament. 

to new difficulties. The king found that he 
was losing his kingdom of Scotland altogether. 
It seemed, however, as if there was nothing that 
he could do to regain it. His reserved funds 
were gone, and his credit was exhausted. 
There was no resource left but to call a Par- 
liament and ask for supplies. He might have 
known, however, that this would be useless, for 
there was so strong a fellow-feeling with the 
Scotch in their alleged grievances among the 
people of England, that he could not reasonably 
expect any response from the latter, in what- 
ever way he might appeal to them. 



156 King Charles I. [1621. 

The Earl of Strafford. His early life. 



Chapter VII. 

The Earl of Strafford. 

*F\ USING the time that the king had been 
J-^ engaged in the attempt to govern En- 
gland without Parliaments, he had, besides 
Laud, a very efficient co-operator, known in 
English history by the name of the Earl of 
Strafford. This title of Earl of Strafford was 
conferred upon him by the king as a reward for 
his services. His father's name was Went- 
worth. He was born in London, and the 
Christian name given to him was Thomas. 
He was educated at the University of Cam- 
bridge, and was much distinguished for his tal- 
ents and his personal accomplishments. After 
finishing his education, he traveled for some 
time on the Continent, visiting foreign cities 
and courts, and studying the languages, man- 
ners, and customs of other nations. He return- 
ed at length to England. He was made a 
knight. His father died when he was about 
twenty-one, and left him a large fortune. He 
was about seven years older than King Charles, 



1621.] The Earl of Strafford. 157 

Strafford's course in Parliament. His opposition to the king. 

so that all these circumstances took place be- 
fore the commencement of Charles's reign. 
For many years after this he was very exten- 
sively known in England as a gentleman of 
large fortune and great abilities, by the name 
of Sir Thomas Wentworth. 

Sir Thomas Wentworth was a member of 
Parliament in those days, and in the contests 
between the king and the Parliament he took 
the side of Parliament. Charles used to main- 
tain that his power alone was hereditary and 
sovereign ; that the Parliament was his coun- 
cil ; and that they had no powers or privileges 
except what he himself or his ancestors had 
granted and allowed them. Wentworth took 
very strong ground against this. He urged 
Parliament to maintain that their rights and 
privileges were inherent and hereditary as well 
as those of the king ; that such powers as they 
possessed were their own, and were entirely in- 
dependent of royal grant or permission ; and 
that the king could no more encroach upon the 
privileges of Parliament, than Parliament upon 
the prerogatives of the king. This was in the 
beginning of the difficulties between the king 
and the Commons. 

It will, perhaps, be recollected by the reader, 
O 



158 King Charles I. [1628 

The leaders removed. The opposition still continues. 

that one of the plans which Charles adopted to 
weaken the opposition to him in Parliament 
was by appointing six of the leaders of this op- 
position to the office of sheriff in their several 
counties. And as the general theory of all 
monarchies is that the subjects are bound to 
obey and serve the king, these men were oblig- 
ed to leave their seats in Parliament and go 
home, to serve as sheriffs. Charles and his 
council supposed that the rest would be more 
quiet and submissive when the leaders of the 
party opposed to him were taken away. But 
the effect was the reverse. The Commons 
were incensed at such a mode of interfering 
with their action, and became more hostile to 
the royal power than ever. 

Wentworth himself, too, was made more de- 
termined in his opposition by this treatment. 
A short time after this, the king's plan of a 
forced loan was adopted, which has already 
been described; that is, a sum of money was 
assessed in the manner of a tax upon all the 
people of the kingdom, and each man was re- 
quired to lend his proportion to the government. 
The king admitted that he had no right to 
make people give money without the action of 
Parliament, but claimed the right to require 



1628.] The Earl of Strafford. 159 

Wentworth imprisoned. His return to Parliament. 

them to lend it. As Sir Thomas Wentworth 
was a man of large fortune, his share of the 
loan was considerable. He absolutely refused 
to pay it. The king had him brought before a 
court which was entirely under his influence, 
and he was condemned to be imprisoned. 
Knowing, however, that this claim on the part 
of the king was very doubtful, they mitigated 
his confinement by allowing him first a range 
of two miles around his place of confinement, 
and afterward they released him entirely. 

He was chosen a member of Parliament 
again, and he returned to his seat more power- 
ful and influential than ever. Buckingham, 
who had been his greatest enemy, was now 
dead, and the king, finding that he had great 
abilities and a spirit that would not yield to in- 
timidation or force, concluded to try kindness 
and favors. 

In fact, there are two different modes by 
which sovereigns in all ages and countries en- 
deavor to neutralize the opposition of popular 
leaders. One is by intimidating them with 
threats and punishments, and the other buying 
them off with appointments and honors. Some 
of the king's high officers of state began to cul- 
tivate the acquaintance of Wentworth, and to 



160 King Charles I. [1628. 

.,.,.,,-■,,-—■- - ■ ■ -■■ ■ ir ■■■■ -— - 

Wentworth is courted. He goes over to the king. 

pay him attentions and civilities. He could 
not but feel gratified with these indications of 
their regard. They complimented his talents 
and his powers, and represented to him that 
such abilities ought to be employed in the serv- 
ice of the state. Finally, the king conferred 
upon him the title of baron. Common grati- 
tude for these marks of distinction and honor 
held him back from any violent opposition to 
the king. His enemies said he was bought off 
by honors and rewards. No doubt he was am- 
bitious, and, like all other politicians, his su- 
preme motive was love of consideration and 
honor. This was doubtless his motive in what 
he had done in behalf of the Parliament. But 
all that he could do as a popular leader in Par- 
liament was to acquire a general ascendency 
over men's minds, and make himself a subject 
of fame and honor. All places of real authori- 
ty were exclusively under the king's control, 
and he could only rise to such stations through 
the sovereign's favor. In a word, he could ac- 
quire only influence as a leader in Parlia- 
ment, while the king could give him power. 

Kings have always, accordingly, a great con- 
trol over the minds of legislators by offering 
them office ; and King Charles, after finding 



1628.] The Earl of Strafford. 161 

Tlie king appoints Wentworth to office. 

that his first advances to "Wentworth were fa- 
vorably received, appointed him one of his Privy 
Council. Wentworth accepted the office. His 
former friends considered that in doing this he 
was deserting them, and betraying the cause 
which he had at first espoused and defended. 
The country at large were much displeased 
with him, finding that he had forsaken their 
cause, and placed himself in a position to act 
against them. 

Persons who change sides in politics or in 
religion are very apt to go from one extreme to 
another. Their former friends revile them, and 
they, in retaliation, act more and more ener- 
getically against them. It was so with Straf- 
ford. He gradually engaged more and more 
fully and earnestly in upholding the king. 
Finally, the king appointed him to a very high 
station, called the Presidency of the North. 
His office was to govern the whole north of En- 
gland— of course, under the direction of the 
king and council. There were four counties 
under his jurisdiction, and the king gave him 
a commission which clothed him with enor- 
mous powers — powers greater, as all the peo- 
ple thought, than the king had any right to be- 
stow. 
11 



162 King Charles I. [1628. 

Wentworth is appointed President of the North. 

Strafford proceeded to the north, and entered 
upon the government of his realm there, with 
a determination to carry out all the king's 
plans to the utmost. From being an ardent 
advocate of the rights of the people, as he was 
at the commencement of his career, he became 
a most determined and uncompromising sup- 
porter of the arbitrary power of the king. He 
insisted on the collection of money from the 
people in all the ways that the king claimed 
the power to collect it by authority of his pre- 
rogative ; and he was so strict and exacting in 
doing this, that he raised the revenue to four 
or five times what any of his predecessors had 
been able to collect. This, of course, pleased 
King Charles and his government extremely ; 
for it was at a time during which the king was 
attempting to govern without a Parliament, 
and every accession to his funds was of ex- 
treme importance. Laud, too, the archbishop, 
was extremely pleased with his exertions and 
his success, and the king looked upon Laud 
and Wentworth as the two most efficient sup- 
porters of his power. They were, in fact, the 
two most efficient promoters of his destruction. 

Of course, the people of the north hated him. 
While he was earning the applause of the arch- 



1632.] The Earl of Strafford. 163 

Wentworth appointed to the government of Ireland. 

bishop and the king, and entitling himself to 
new honors and increased power, he was sow- 
ing the seeds of the bitterest animosity in the 
hearts of the people every where. Still he en- 
joyed all the external marks of consideration 
and honor. The President of the North was a 
sort of king. He was clothed with great pow- 
ers, and lived in great state and splendor. He 
had many attendants, and the great nobles of 
the land, who generally took Charles's side in 
the contests of the day, envied Wentworth's 
greatness and power, and applauded the energy 
and success of his administration. 

Ireland was, at this time, in a disturbed and 
disordered state, and Laud proposed that Went- 
worth should be appointed by the king to the 
government of it. A great proportion of the 
inhabitants were Catholics, and were very little 
disposed to submit to Protestant rule. Went- 
worth was appointed lord deputy, and after- 
ward lord lieutenant, which made him king 
of Ireland in all but the name. Every thing, 
of course, was done in the name of Charles. 
He carried the same energy into his govern- 
ment here that he had exhibited in the north 
of England. He improved the condition of the 
country astonishingly in respect to trade, to 



164 King Charles I. [1632. 

Wentworth's arbitrary government. He is made an earl. 

revenue, and to public order. But he governed 
in the most arbitrary manner, and he boasted 
that he had rendered the king as absolute a 
sovereign in Ireland as any prince in the world 
could be. Such a boast from a man who had 
once been a very prominent defender of the 
rights of the people against this very kind of 
sovereignty, was fitted to produce a feeling of 
universal exasperation and desire of revenge. 
The murmurs and muttered threats which 
filled the land, though suppressed, were very 
deep and very strong. 

The king, however, and Laud, considered 
Wentworth as their most able and efficient co- 
adjutor ; and when the difficulties in Scotland 
began to grow serious, they recalled him from 
Ireland, and put that country into the hands of 
another ruler. The king then advanced him 
to the rank of an earl. His title was the Earl 
of Strafford. As the subsequent parts of his 
history attracted more attention than those 
preceding his elevation to this earldom, he has 
been far more widely known among mankind 
by the name of Strafford than by his original 
name of Wentworth, which was, from this pe- 
riod, nearly forgotten. 

To return now to the troubles in Scotland. 



1640.] The Earl of Strafford. 165 

Difficulties. Laud's administration of his office. 

The king found that it would be impossible to 
go on without supplies, and he accordingly con- 
cluded, on the whole, to call a Parliament. 
He was in serious trouble. Laud was in seri- 
ous trouble too. He had been indefatigably 
engaged for many years in establishing Epis- 
copacy all over England, and in putting down, 
by force of law, all disposition to dissent from 
it ; and in attempting to produce, throughout 
the realm, one uniform system of Christian 
faith and worship. This was his idea of the 
perfection of religious order and right. He 
used to make an annual visitation to all the 
bishoprics in the realm ; inquire into the usages 
which prevailed there ; put a stop, so far as he 
could, to all irregularities ; and confirm and 
establish, by the most decisive measures, the 
Episcopal authority. He sent in his report to 
the king of the results of his inquiries, asking 
the king's aid, where his own powers were in- 
sufficient, for the more full accomplishment of 
his plans. But, notwithstanding all this dili- 
gence and zeal, he found that he met with very 
partial success. The irregularities, as he call- 
ed them, which he suppressed in one place, 
would break out in another ; the disposition to 
throw off the dominion of bishop's was getting 



166 King Charles I. [1640. 

Defense of Episcopacy. Progress of non-conformity. 

more and more extensive and deeply seated; 
and now, the result of the religious revolution 
in Scotland, and of the general excitement 
which it produced in England, was to widen 
and extend this feeling more than ever. 

He did not, however, give up the contest. 
He employed an able writer to draw up a de- 
fense of Episcopacy, as the true and scriptural 
form of Church government. The book, when 
first prepared, was moderate in its tone, and al- 
lowed that in some particular cases a Presby- 
terian mode of government might be admissi- 
ble ; but Laud, in revising the book, struck out 
these concessions as unnecessary and danger- 
ous, and placed Episcopacy in full and exclu- 
sive possession of the ground, as the divinely 
instituted and only admissible form of Church 
government and discipline. He caused this 
book to be circulated ; but the attempt to rea- 
son with the refractory, after having failed in 
the attempt to coerce them, is not generally 
very successful. The archbishop, in his report 
to the king this year of the state of things 
throughout his province, represents the spirit 
of non-conformity to the Church of England as 
getting too strong for him to control without 
more efficient help from the civil power; but 



1640.] The Earl of Strafford. 167 

A Parliament called. Strafford appointed commander-in-chief. 

whether it would be wise, he added, to under- 
take any more effectual coercion in the present 
distracted state of the kingdom, he left it for 
the king to decide. 

Laud proposed that the council should rec- 
ommend to the king the calling of a Parlia- 
ment. At the same time, they passed a resolu- 
tion that, in case the Parliament " should prove 
peevish, and refuse to grant supplies, they would 
sustain the king in the resort to extraordinary 
measures." This was regarded as a threat, 
and did not help to prepossess the members fa- 
vorably in regard to the feeling with which the 
king was to meet them. The king ordered the 
Parliament to be elected in December, but did 
not call them together until April. In the 
mean time, he went on raising an army, so as 
to have his military preparations in readiness. 
He, however, appointed a new set of officers to 
the command of this army, neglecting those 
who were in command before, as he had found 
them so little disposed to act efficiently in his 
cause. He supplied the leader's place with 
Strafford. This change produced very exten- 
sive murmurs of dissatisfaction, which, added 
to all the other causes of complaint, made the 
times look very dark and stormy. 



168 King Charles I. [1640. 

Meeting of Parliament. The king's speech. 

The Parliament assembled in April. The 
king went into the House of Lords, the Com- 
mons being, as usual, summoned .to the bar. 
He addressed them as follows : 

"My Lords and gentlemen, — There was 
never a King who had a more great and weigh- 
ty Cause to call his People together than my- 
self. I will not trouble you with the particu- 
lars. I have informed my Lord keeper, and 
now command him to speak, and I desire your 
Attention." 

The keeper referred to was the keeper of the 
king's seals, who was, of course, a great officer 
of state. He made a speech, informing the 
houses, in general terms, of the king's need of 
money, but said that it was not necessary for 
him to explain minutely the monarch's plans, 
as they were exclusively his own concern. 
We may as well quote his words, in order to 
show in what light the position and province of 
a British Parliament was considered in those 
days. 

" His majesty's kingly resolutions," said the 
lord keeper, " are seated in the ark of his sa- 



1640.J The Earl of Strafford. 169 

Address of the lord keeper. Grievances. 

cred breast, and it were a presumption of too 
high a nature for any Uzzah uncalled to touch 
it. Yet his Majesty is now pleased to lay by 
the shining Beams of Majesty, as Phoebus did 
to Phaeton, that the distance between Sover- 
eignty and Subjection should not bar you of 
that filial freedom of Access to his Person and 
Counsels ; only let us beware how, with the 
Son of Clymene, we aim not at the guiding of 
the Chariot, as if that were the only Testimony 
of Fatherly Affection; and let us remember, 
that though the King sometimes lays by the 
Beams and Rays of Majesty, he never lays by 
Majesty itself." 

When the keeper had finished his speech, the 
king confirmed it by saying that he had exag- 
gerated nothing, and the houses were left to 
their deliberations. Instead of proceeding to 
the business of raising money, they commenced 
an inquiry into the grievances, as they called 
them — that is, all the unjust acts and the mal- 
administration of the government, of which the 
country had been complaining for the ten years 
during which there had been an intermission 
of Parliaments. The king did all in his power 
to arrest this course of procedure. He sent 
12 P 



170 King Charles I. [1640. 

Messages. Parliament dissolved. 

them message after message, urging them to 
leave these things, and take up first the ques- 
tion of supplies. He then sent a message to 
the House of Peers, requesting them to inter- 
pose, and exert their influence to lead the Com- 
mons to act. The Peers did so. The Com- 
mons sent them back a reply that their inter- 
ference in the business of supply, which be- 
longed to the Commons alone, was a breach of 
their privileges. " And," they added, " therefore, 
the Commons desire their lordships in their 
wisdom to find out some way for the reparation 
of their privileges broken by that act, and to 
prevent the like infringement in future." 

Thus repulsed on every hand, the king gave 
up the hope of accomplishing any thing through 
the action of the House of Commons, and he 
suddenly determined to dissolve Parliament. 
The session had continued only about three 
weeks. In dissolving the Parliament the king 
took no notice of the Commons whatever, but 
addressed the Lords alone. The Commons and 
the whole country were incensed at such ca- 
pricious treatment of the national Legislature. 

The king and his council tried all summer 
to get the army ready to be put in motion. 
The great difficulty, of course, was want of 



1640.] The Earl of Strafford. 171 

The Scots cross the borders and invade England. 

funds. The Convocation, which was the great 
council of the Church, and which was accus- 
tomed in those days to sit simultaneously with 
Parliament, continued their session afterward 
in this case, and raised some money for the 
king. The nobles of the court subscribed a 
considerable amount, also, which they lent him. 
They wanted to sustain him in his contest 
with the Commons on their own account, and 
then, besides, they felt a personal interest in 
him, and a sympathy for him in the troubles 
which were thickening around him. 

The summer months passed away in making 
the preparations and getting the various bodies 
of troops ready, and the military stores collect- 
ed at the place of rendezvous in York and New- 
castle. The Scots, in the mean time, had been 
assembling their forces near the borders, and, 
being somewhat imboldened by their success in 
the previous campaign, crossed the frontier, and 
advanced boldly to meet the forces of the king. 

They published a manifesto, declaring that 
they were not entering England with any hos- 
tile intent toward their sovereign, but were 
only coming to present to him their humble pe- 
titions for a redress of their grievances, which 
they said they were sure he would graciously 



172 King Charles I. [1640. 

March of the Scots. The king goes to York. 

receive as soon as he had opportunity to learr 
from them how great their grievances had been. 
They respectfully requested that the people of 
England would allow them to pass safely and 
without molestation through the land, and 
promised to conduct themselves with the ut- 
most propriety and decorum. This promise 
they kept. They avoided molesting the inhabi- 
tants in any way, and purchased fairly every 
thing they consumed. When the English offi- 
cers learned that the Scotch had crossed the 
Tweed, they sent on immediately to London, 
to the king, urging him to come north at once, 
and join the army, with all the remaining for- 
ces at his command. The king did so, but it 
was too late. He arrived at York ; from York 
he went northward to reach the van of his 
army, which had been posted at Newcastle, but 
on his way he was met by messengers saying 
that they were in full retreat, and that the 
Scotch had got possession of Newcastle. 

The circumstances of the battle were these. 
Newcastle is upon the Tyne. The banks at 
Newcastle are steep and high, but about four 
miles above the town is a place called Newburn, 
where was a meadow near the river, and a con- 
venient place to cross. The Scotch advanced 



1640.] The Earl of Strafford. 173 

Defeat of the English. Perplexities and dangers. 

in a very slow and orderly manner to Newburn, 
and encamped there. The English sent a de- 
tachment from Newcastle to arrest their prog- 
ress. The Scotch begged them not to inter- 
rupt their march, as they were only going to 
present petitions to the king ! The English 
general, of course, paid no attention to this pre- 
text. The Scotch army then attacked them, 
and soon put them to flight. The routed En- 
glish soldiers fled to Newcastle, and were there 
joined by all that portion of the army which 
was in Newcastle in a rapid retreat. The 
Scotch took possession of the town, but con- 
ducted themselves in a very orderly manner, 
and bought and paid for every thing they used. 

The poor king was now in a situation of the 
most imminent and terrible danger. Rebel 
subjects had got full possession of one kingdom, 
and were now advancing at the head of victo- 
rious armies into the other. He himself had 
entirely alienated the affections of a large por- 
tion of his subjects, and had openly quarreled 
with and dismissed the Legislature. He had 
no funds, and had exhausted all possible means 
of raising funds. He was half distracted with' 
the perplexities and dangers of his position. 

His deciding on dissolving Parliament in the 
P2 



174 King Charles I. [1640. 

The king calls a council of peers. Message from the Scots. 

spring was a hasty step, and he bitterly regret- 
ted it the moment the deed was done. He 
wanted to recall it. He deliberated several 
days about the possibility of summoning the 
same members to meet again, and constituting 
them again a Parliament. But the lawyers 
insisted that this could not be done. A disso- 
lution was a dissolution. The Parliament, once 
dissolved, was no more. It could not be brought 
to life again. There must be new orders to 
the country to proceed to new elections. To 
do this at once would have been too humili- 
ating for the king. He now found, however, 
that the necessity for it could no longer be post- 
poned. There was such a thing in the En- 
glish history as a council of peers alone, called 
in a sudden emergency which did not allow of 
time for the elections necessary to constitute 
the House of Commons. Charles called such 
a council of peers .to meet at York, and they 
immediately assembled. 

In the mean time the Scotch sent embassa- 
dors to York, saying to the king that they 
were advancing to lay their grievances before 
him ! They expressed great sorrow and regret 
at the victory which they had been compelled 
to gain over some forces that had attempted to 



1640.] The Earl of Strafford. 175 

The king compromises with the Scots. Opposition of Strafford. 

prevent them from getting access to their sov- 
ereign. The king laid this communication be- 
fore the lords, and asked their advice what to 
do ; and also asked them to counsel him how 
he should provide funds to keep his army to- 
gether until a Parliament could be convened. 
The lords advised him to appoint commission- 
ers to meet the Scotch, and endeavor to com- 
promise the difficulties ; and to send to the city 
of London, asking that corporation to lend him 
a small sum until Parliament could be assem- 
bled. 

This advice was followed. A temporary 
treaty was made with the rebels, although 
making a treaty with rebels is perhaps the 
most humiliating thing that a hereditary sov- 
ereign is ever compelled to do. The Earl of 
Strafford was, however, entirely opposed to 
this policy. He urged the king most earnest- 
ly not to give up the contest without a more 
decisive struggle. He represented to him the 
danger of beginning to yield to the torrent 
which he now began to see would overwhelm 
them all if it was allowed to have its way. 
He tried to persuade the king that the Scots 
might yet be driven back, and that it would be 
possible to get along without a Parliament. 



176 King Charles I [1640. 

Strafford desires to return to Ireland. The king's promised protection. 

He dreaded a Parliament. The king, however, 
and his other advisers, thought that they must 
yield a little to the storm. Strafford then 
wanted to be allowed to return to his post in 
Ireland, where he thought that he should prob- 
ably be safe from the terrible enmity which he 
must have known that he had awakened in En- 
gland, and which he thought a Parliament 
would concentrate and bring upon his devoted 
head. But the king would not consent to this. 
He assured Strafford that if a Parliament 
should assemble, he would take care that they 
should not hurt a hair of his head. Unfortu- 
nate monarch ! How little he foresaw that 
that very Parliament, from whose violence he 
thus promised to defend his favorite servant so 
completely as to insure him from the slightest 
injury, would begin by taking off his favorite's 
head, and end with taking off his own ! 



1640.] Strafford and Laud's End. 177 

Opening of the new Parliament. 



Chapter VIII. 
Downfall of Strafford and Laud. 

THE Parliament assembled in November, 
1640. The king proceeded to London to 
meet them. He left Strafford in command of 
the army at York. Active hostilities had been 
suspended, as a sort of temporary truce had 
been concluded with the Scots, to prepare the 
way for a final treaty. Strafford had been en- 
tirely opposed to this, being still full of energy 
and courage. The king, however, began to 
feel alarmed. He went to London to meet the 
Parliament which he had summoned, but he 
was prepared to meet them in a very different 
spirit from that which he had manifested on 
former occasions. He even gave up all the ex- 
ternal circumstances of pomp and parade with 
which the opening of Parliament had usually 
been attended. He had been accustomed to go 
to the House of Lords in state, with a numer- 
ous retinue and great parade. Now he was 
conveyed from his palace along the river in a 
barge, in a quiet and unostentatious manner. 
12 



178 King Charles I. [1640. 

The king's speech. Attacks on Strafford and Laud. 

His opening speech, too, was moderate and 
conciliatory. In a word, it was pretty evident 
to the Commons that the proud and haughty 
spirit of their royal master was beginning to 
be pretty effectually humbled. 

Of course, now, in proportion as the king 
should falter, the Commons would grow bold. 
The House immediately began to attack Laud 
and Strafford in their speeches. It is the the- 
ory of the British Constitution that the king 
can do no wrong ; whatever criminality at any 
time attaches to the acts of his administration, 
belongs to his advisers, not to himself. The 
speakers condemned, in most decided terms, the 
arbitrary and tyrannical course which the gov- 
ernment had pursued during the intermission 
of Parliaments, but charged it all, not to the 
king, but to Strafford and Laud. Strafford 
had been, as they considered, the responsible 
person in civil and military affairs, and Laud 
in those of the Church. These speeches were 
made to try the temper of the House and of the 
country, and see whether there was hostility 
enough to Laud and Strafford in the House and 
in the country, and boldness enough in the ex- 
pression of it, to warrant their impeachment. 

The attacks thus made in the House against 



1640.] Strafford and Laud's End. 179 

Speeches against them. Feelings of hostility. 

the two ministers were made very soon. With- 
in a week after the opening of Parliament, one 
of the members, after declaiming a long time 
against the encroachments and tyranny of 
Archbishop Laud, whose title, according to En- 
glish usage, was " his Grace," said he hoped 
that, before the year ran round, his grace would 
either have more grace or no grace at all ; 
" for," he added, " our manifold griefs do fill a 
mighty and vast circumference, yet in such a 
manner that from every part our lines of sor- 
row do meet in him, and point at him the cen- 
ter, from whence our miseries in this Church, 
and many of them in the Commonwealth, do 
flow." He said, also, that if they must submit 
to a pope, he would rather obey one that was 
as far off as the Tiber, than to have him come 
as near as the Thames. 

Similar denunciations were made against 
Strafford, and they awakened no opposition. 
On the contrary, it was found that the feeling 
of hostility against both the ministers was so 
universal and so strong, that the leaders began 
to think seriously of an impeachment on a 
charge of high treason. High treason is the 
greatest crime known to the English law, and 
the punishment for it, especially in the case of 



180 King Charles I. [1640. 

Bill of attainder. Mode of proceeding. 

a peer of the realm, is very terrible. This pun- 
ishment was generally inflicted by what was 
called a bill of attainder, which brought with it 
the worst of penalties. It implied the perfect 
destruction of the criminal in every sense. He 
was to lose his life by having his head cut off 
upon a block. His body, according to the strict 
letter of the law, was to be mutilated in a man- 
ner too shocking to be here described. His 
children were disinherited, and his property all 
forfeited. This was considered as the conse- 
quence of the attainting of the blood, which ren- 
dered it corrupt, and incapable of transmitting 
an inheritance. In fact, it was the intention of 
the bill of attainder to brand the wretched ob- 
ject of it with complete and perpetual infamy. 
The proceedings, too, in the impeachment 
and trial of a high minister of state, were al- 
ways very imposing and solemn. The im- 
peachment must be moved by the Commons, 
and tried by the Peers. A peer of the realm 
could be tried by no inferior tribunal. When 
the Commons proposed bringing articles of im- 
peachment against an officer of state, they sent 
first a messenger to the House of Peers to ask 
them to arrest the person whom they intended 
to accuse, and to hold him for trial until they- 



1640.] Strafford and Laud's End. 181 

The trial. Proceedings against Strafford. 

should have their articles prepared. The House 
of Peers would comply with this request, and a 
time would be appointed for the trial. The 
Commons would frame the charges, and ap- 
point a certain number of their members to 
manage the prosecution. They would collect 
evidence, and get every thing ready for the 
trial. When the time arrived, the chamber of 
the House of Peers would be arranged as a 
court room, or they would assemble in some 
other hall more suitable for the purpose, the 
prisoner would be brought to the bar, the com- 
missioners on the part of the Commons would 
appear with their documents and their evi- 
dence, persons of distinction would assemble to 
listen to the proceedings, and the trial would 
go on. 

It was in accordance with this routine that 
the Commons commenced proceedings against 
the Earl of Strafford, very soon after the open- 
ing of the session, by appointing a committee 
to inquire whether there was any just cause to 
accuse him of treason. The committee report- 
ed to the House that there was just cause. The 
House then appointed a messenger to go to the 
House of Lords, saying that they had found 
that there was just cause to accuse the Earl of 

Q 



182 King Charles I. [1640. 

Arrest of Strafford. Usher of the black rod. 

Strafford of high treason, and to ask that they 
would sequester him from the House, as the 
phrase was, and hold him in custody till they 
could prepare the charges and the evidence 
against him. All these proceedings were in se- 
cret session, in order that Strafford might not 
get warning and fly. The Commons then 
nearly all accompanied their messenger to the 
House of Lords, to show how much in earnest 
they were. The Lords complied with the re- 
quest. They caused the earl to be arrested and 
committed to the charge of the usher of the 
black rod, and sent two officers to the Com- 
mons to inform them that they had done so. 

The usher of the black rod is a very import- 
ant officer of the House of Lords. He is a sort 
of sheriff, to execute the various behests of the 
House, having officers to serve under him for 
this purpose. The badge of his office has been, 
for centuries, a black rod with a golden lion at 
the upper end, which is borne before him as 
the emblem of his authority. A peer of the 
realm, when charged with treason, is committed 
to the custody of this officer. In this case he 
took the Earl of Strafford under his charge, and 
kept him at his house, properly guarded. The 
Commons went on preparing the articles of im- 
peachment. 



1641.] Strafford and Laud's End. 183 



Laud threatened with violence. 



This was in November. During the winter 
following the parties struggled one against an- 
other, Laud doing all in his power to strength- 
en the position of the king, and to avert the 
dangers which threatened himself and Strafford. 
The animosity, however, which was felt against 
him, was steadily increasing. The House of 
Commons did many things to discountenance 
the rites and usages of the Episcopal Church, 
and to make them odious. The excitement 
among the populace increased, and mobs began 
to interfere with the service in some of the 
churches in London and Westminster. At 
last a mob of five hundred persons assembled 
around the archbishop's palace at Lambeth.* 
This palace, as has been before stated, is on 
the bank of the Thames, just above London, op- 
posite to Westminster. The mob were there for 
two hours, beating at the doors and windows in 
an attempt to force admission, but in vain. 
The palace was very strongly guarded, and the 
mob were at length repulsed. One of the ring- 
leaders was taken and hanged. 

One would have thought that this sort of 
persecution would have awakened some sym- 
pathy in the archbishop's favor ; but it was too 

* See view of this palace on page 133. 



184 King Charles I. [1641. 

Arrest of Laud on the charge of treason. 

late. He had been bearing down so merciless- 
ly himself upon the people of England for so 
many years, suppressing, by the severest meas- 
ures, all expressions of discontent, that the 
hatred had become entirely uncontrollable. Its 
breaking out at one point only promoted its 
breaking out in another. The House of Com- 
mons sent a messenger to the House of Lords, 
as they had done in the case of Strafford, say- 
ing that they had found good cause to accuse 
the Archbishop of Canterbury of treason, and 
asked that he might be sequestered from the 
House, and held in custody till they could pre- 
pare their charges, and the evidence to sustain 
them. 

The archbishop was at that time in his seat. 
He was directed to withdraw. Before leaving 
the chamber he asked leave to say a few words. 
Permission was granted, and he said in sub- 
stance that he was truly sorry to have awak- 
ened in the hearts of his countrymen such a de- 
gree of displeasure as was obviously excited 
against him. He was most unhappy to have 
lived to see the day in which he was made 
subject to a charge of treason. He begged 
their lordships to look at the whole course of 
his life, and he was sure that they would be 



1641.] Strafford and Laud's End. 185 

Laud's speech. His confinement. 

convinced that there was not a single member 
of the House of Commons who could really 
think him guilty of such a charge. 

Here one of the lords interrupted him to say, 
that by speaking in that manner he was utter- 
ing slander against the House of Commons, 
charging them with solemnly bringing accusa- 
tions which they did not believe to be true. 
The archbishop then said, that if the charge 
must be entertained, he hoped that he should 
have a fair trial, according to the ancient Par- 
liamentary usages of the realm. Another of 
the lords interrupted him again, saying that 
such a remark was improper, as it was not for 
him to prescribe the manner in which the pro- 
ceedings should be conducted. He then with- 
drew, while the House should consider what 
course to take. Presently he was summoned 
back to the bar of the House, and there com- 
mitted to the charge of the usher of the black 
rod. The usher conducted him to his house, 
and he was kept there for ten weeks in close 
confinement. 

At last the time for the trial of Strafford 

came on, while Laud was in confinement. The 

interest felt in the trial was deep and universal. 

There were three kingdoms, as it were, com- 

13 



186 King Charles I. [1641. 

Trial of Strafford. Unjust conduct of the Commons. 

bined against one man. Various measures 
were resorted to by the Commons to diminish 
the possibility that the accused should escape 
conviction. Some of them have since been 
thought to be unjust and cruel. For example, 
several persons who were strong friends of 
Strafford, and who, as was supposed, might of- 
fer testimony in his favor, were charged with 
treason and confined in prison until the trial 
was over. The Commons appointed thirteen 
persons to manage the prosecution. These per- 
sons were many months preparing the charges 
and the evidence, keeping their whole proceed- 
ings profoundly secret during all the time. At 
last the day approached, and Westminster Hall 
was fitted up and prepared to be the scene of 
the trial. 

Westminster Hall has the name of being the 
largest room whose roof is not supported by 
pillars in Europe. It stands in the region of 
the palaces and the Houses of Parliament at 
Westminster, and has been for seven centuries 
the scene of pageants and ceremonies without 
number. It is said that ten thousand persons 
have been accommodated in it at a banquet.* 

# It is two hundred and seventy feet long, seventy -five 
wide, and ninety high. > 




Westminster Hall. 



1641.] Strafford and Laud's End. 189 

Arrangements at Westminster Hall. Charges. 

This great room was fitted up for the trial. 
Seats were provided for both houses of Parlia- 
ment ; for the Commons were to be present as 
accusers, and the Lords as the court. There 
was, as usual, a chair of state, or throne, for the 
king, as a matter of form. There was also a 
private gallery, screened from the observation 
of the spectators, where the king and queen 
could sit and witness the proceedings. They 
attended during the whole trial. 

One would have supposed that the deliberate 
solemnity of these preparations would have 
calmed the animosity of Strafford's enemies, 
and led them to be satisfied at last with some- 
thing less than his utter destruction. But this 
seems not to have been the effect. The terri- 
ble hostilities which had been gathering strength 
so long, seemed to rage all the more fiercely 
now that there was a prospect of their gratifi- 
cation. And yet it was very hard to find any 
thing sufficiently distinct and tangible against 
the accused to warrant his conviction. The 
commissioners who had been appointed to man- 
age the case divided the charges among them. 
When the trial commenced, they stated and 
urged these charges in succession. Strafford, 
who had not known beforehand what thev were 



190 King Charles I. [1641. 



Imposing Scene. Strafford's able and eloquent defense. 

to be, replied to them, one by one, with calm- 
ness and composure, and yet with great elo- 
quence and power. The extraordinary abili- 
ties which he had shown through the whole 
course of his life, seemed to shine out with in- 
creased splendor amid the awful solemnities 
which were now darkening its close. He was 
firm and undaunted, and yet respectful and 
submissive. The natural excitements of the 
occasion ; the imposing assembly ; the breath- 
less attention ; the magnificent hall ; the con- 
sciousness that the opposition which he was 
struggling to stem before that great tribunal 
was the combined hostility of three kingdoms, 
and that the torrent was flowing from a reser- 
voir which had been accumulating for many 
years ; and that the whole civilized world were 
looking on with great interest to watch the re- 
sult ; and perhaps, more than all, that he was 
in the unseen presence of his sovereign, whom 
he was accustomed to look upon as the great- 
est personage on earth ; these, and the other 
circumstances of the scene, filled his mind with 
strong emotions, and gave animation, and en- 
ergy, and a lofty eloquence to all that he said. 
The trial lasted eighteen days, the excite- 
ment increasing constantly to the end. There 



1641.] Strafford and Laud's End. 191 

The charge of treason a mere pretext. 

was nothing proved which could with any pro- 
priety be considered as treason. He had man- 
aged the government, it is true, with one set 
of views in respect to the absolute prerogatives 
and powers of the king, while those who now 
were in possession of power held opposite views, 
and they considered it a matter of necessity 
that he should die. The charge of treason was 
a pretext to bring the case somewhat within 
the reach of the formalities of law. It is one 
of the necessary incidents of all governmental 
systems founded on force, and not on the con- 
sent of the governed, that when great and fun- 
damental questions of policy arise, they often 
bring the country to a crisis in which there can 
be no real settlement of the dispute without the 
absolute destruction of one party or the other. 
It was so now, as the popular leaders supposed. 
They had determined that stern necessity re- 
quired that Laud and Strafford must die ; and 
the only object of going through the formality 
of a trial was to soften the violence of the pro- 
ceeding a little, by doing all that could be done 
toward establishing a legal justification of the 
deed. 

The trial, as has been said, lasted eighteen 
days. During all this time, the leaders were 



192 King Charles I. [1641. 

Vote on the bill of attainder. Interposition of the king. 

not content with simply urging the proceed- 
ings forward energetically in Westminster Hall. 
They were maneuvering and managing in every 
possible way to secure the final vote. But, 
notwithstanding this, Strafford's defense was so 
able, and the failure to make out the charge 
of treason against him was so clear, that it was 
doubtful what the result would be. According- 
ly, without waiting for the decision of the Peers 
on the impeachment, a bill of attainder against 
the earl was brought forward in the House of 
Commons. This bill of attainder was passed 
by a large majority — yeas 204, nays 59. It 
was then sent to the House of Lords. The 
Lords were very unwilling to pass it. 

While they were debating it, the king sent 
a message to them to say that in his opinion 
the earl had not been guilty of treason, or of 
any attempt to subvert the laws ; and that 
several things which had been alleged in the 
trial, and on which the bill of attainder chiefly 
rested, were not true. He was willing, how- 
ever, if it would satisfy the enemies of the earl, 
to have him convicted of a misdemeanor, and 
made incapable of holding any public office from 
that time ; but he protested against his being 
punished by a bill of attainder on a charge of 
treason. 



1641.] Strafford and Laud's End. 193 

Clamor of the populace. Condemnation. 

This interposition of the king in Strafford's 
favor awakened loud expressions of displeas- 
ure. They called it an interference with the 
action of one of the houses of Parliament. The 
enemies of Strafford created a great excitement 
against him out of doors. They raised clamor- 
ous calls for his execution among the populace. 
The people made black lists of the names of 
persons who were in the earl's favor, and post- 
ed them up in public places, calling such per- 
sons Straffordians, and threatening them with 
public vengeance. The Lords, who would 
have been willing to have saved Strafford's life 
if they had dared, began to find that they could 
not do so without endangering their own. 
When at last the vote came to be taken in the 
House of Lords, out of eighty members who 
had been present at the trial, only forty-six 
were present to vote, and the bill was passed 
by a vote of thirty-five to eleven. The thirty- 
four who were absent were probably all against 
the bill, but were afraid to appear. 

The responsibility now devolved upon the 
king. An act of Parliament must be signed by 
the king. He really enacts it. The action of 
the two houses is, in theory, only a recom- 
mendation of the measure to him. The king 



194 King Charles I. [1041. 

. 

The king hesitates about signing the bill. 

was determined on no account to give his con- 
sent to Strafford's condemnation. He, how- 
ever, laid the subject before his Privy Council. 
They, after deliberating upon it, recommended 
that he should sign the bill. Nothing else, 
they said, could allay the terrible storm which 
was raging, and the king ought to prefer the 
peace and safety of the realm to the life of 
any one man, however innocent he might be. 
The populace, in the mean time, crowded 
around the king's palace at Whitehall, calling 
out " Justice ! justice /" and filling the air 
with threats and imprecations ; and preachers 
in their pulpits urged the necessity of punish- 
ing offenders, and descanted on the iniquity 
which those magistrates committed who allow- 
ed great transgressors to escape the penalty 
due for their crimes. 

The queen, too, was alarmed. She begged 
the king, with tears, not any longer to attempt 
to withstand the torrent which threatened to 
sweep them all away in its fury. While things 
were in this state, Charles received a letter 
from Strafford in the Tower, expressing his con- 
sent, and even his request, that the king should 
yield and sign the bill. 

The Tower of London is verv celebrated in 



1641.] Strafford and Laud's End. 195 

The Tower. Strafford's letter to the king. 

English history. Though called simply by the 
name of the Tower, it is, in fact, as will be 
seen by the engraving in the frontispiece, an 
extended group of buildings, which are of all 
ages, sizes, and shapes, and covering an exten- 
sive area. It is situated below the city of Lon- 
don, having been originally built as a fortifica- 
tion for the defense of the city. Its use for this 
purpose has, however, long since passed away. 
Strafford said, in his letter to the king, 

" To set your Majesty's conscience at Liber- 
ty, I do most humbly beseech your Majesty for 
Prevention of Evils, which may happen by 
your Refusal, to pass this Bill. Sir, My Con- 
sent shall more acquit you herein to God, than 
all the World can do besides ; To a willing Man 
there is no Injury done ; and as by God's Grace, 
I forgive all the World, with a calmness and 
Meekness of infinite Contentment to my dis- 
lodging Soul, so, Sir, to you I can give the Life 
of this World with all the cheerfulness imag- 
inable, in the just Acknowledgment of your ex- 
ceeding Favors ; and only beg that in your 
Goodness you would vouchsafe to cast your 
gracious Regard upon my poor Son and his 
three sisters, less or more, and no otherwise 



196 » King Charles I. [1641. 

The king signs the bill. Strafford's surprise. 

than as their unfortunate Father may hereaf- 
ter appear more or less guilty of this Death. 
God long preserve your Majesty." 

On receiving this letter the king caused the 
bill to be signed. He would not do it with his 
own hands, but commissioned two of his coun- 
cil to do it in his name. He then sent a mes- 
senger to Strafford to announce the decision, 
and to inform him that he must prepare to die. 
The messenger observed that the earl seemed 
surprised ; and after hearing that the king had 
signed the bill, he quoted, in a tone of despair, 
the words of Scripture, " Put not your trust in 
princes, nor in the sons of men, for in them is 
no salvation." Historians have thought it 
strange that Strafford should have expressed 
this disappointment when he had himself re- 
quested the king to resist the popular will no 
longer ; and they infer from it that he was not 
sincere in the request, but supposed that the 
king would regard it as an act of nobleness and 
generosity on his part, that would render him 
more unwilling than ever to consent to his de- 
struction, and that he was accordingly surpris- 
ed and disappointed when he found that the 
king had taken him at his word. It is said, 



1641.] Strafford and Laud's End. 197 



The king asks mercy for Strafford. 



however, by some historians, that this letter 
was a forgery, and that it was written by some 
of Strafford's enemies to lead the king to resist 
no longer. The reader, by perusing the let- 
ter again, can perhaps form some judgment 
whether such a document was more likely to 
have been fabricated by enemies, or really writ- 
ten by the unhappy prisoner himself. 

The king did not entirely give up the hope 
of saving his friend, even after the bill of attain- 
der was signed. He addressed the following 
message to the House of Lords. 

My Lords, — I did yesterday satisfy the Jus- 
tice of this Kingdom by passing the Bill of At- 
tainder against the Earl of Strafford : but Mer- 
cy being as inherent and inseparable to a King 
as Justice, I desire at this time in some meas- 
ure to shew that likewise, by suffering that 
unfortunate Man to fulfill the natural course 
of his Life in a close Imprisonment : yet so, if 
ever he make the least Offer to escape, or offer 
directly or indirectly to meddle in any sort of 
public Business, especially with Me either by 
Message or Letter, it shall cost him his Life 
without farther Process. This^ if it may be 
done without the Discontentment of my Peo- 



198 King Charles I. [1641. 

Mercy refused. Strafford's message to Laud. 

pie, will be an unspeakable Contentment to 
me. 

" I will not say that your complying with 
me in this my intended Mercy, shall make me 
more willing, but certainly 'twill make me 
more cheerful in granting your just Grievan- 
ces : But if no less than his Life can satisfie my 
People, I must say Let justice be done. Thus 
again recommending the consideration of my 
Intention to you, I rest, 

" Your Unalterable and Affectionate Friend, 

" Charles R." 

The Lords were inexorable. Three days 
from the time of signing the bill, arrangements 
were made for conducting the prisoner to the 
scaffold. Laud, who had been his friend and 
fellow-laborer in the king's service, was confined 
also in the Tower, awaiting his turn to come to 
trial. They were not allowed to visit each 
other, but Strafford sent word to Laud request- 
ing him to be at his window at the time when 
he was to pass, to bid him farewell," and to give 
him his blessing. Laud accordingly appeared 
at the window, and Strafford, as he passed, 
asked for the prelate's prayers and for his bless- 
ing. The old man, for Laud was now nearly 



1641.] Strafford and Laud's End. 201 

Composure of Strafford. His execution. 

seventy years of age, attempted to speak, but 
he could not command himself sufficiently to 
express what he wished to say, and he fell back 
into the arms of his attendants. " God protect 
you," said Strafford, and walked calmly on. 

He went to the place of execution with the 
composure and courage of a hero. He spoke 
freely to those around him, asserted his inno- 
cence, sent messages to his absent friends, and 
said he was ready and willing to die. The 
scaffold, in such executions as this, is a platform 
slightly raised, with a block and chairs upon it, 
all covered with black cloth. A part of the 
dress has to be removed just before the execu- 
tion, in order that the neck of the sufferer may 
be fully exposed to the impending blow. Straf- 
ford made these preparations himself, and said, 
as he did so, that he was in no wise afraid of 
death, but that he should lay his head upon that 
block as cheerfully as he ever did upon his pil- 
low. 

Charles found his position in no respect im- 
proved by the execution of Strafford. The 
Commons, finding their influence and power in- 
creasing, grew more and more bold, and were 
from this time so absorbed in the events con- 
14 



202 King Charles I. [1641. 

Execution of Laud. His firmness. 

nected with the progress of their quarrel with 
the king, that they left Laud to pine in his 
prison for about four years. They then found 
time to act over again the solemn and awful 
scene of a trial for treason before the House of 
Peers, the passing of a bill of attainder, and an 
execution on Tower Hill. Laud was over 
seventy years of age when the ax fell upon him. 
He submitted to his fate with a calmness and 
heroism in keeping with his age and his char- 
acter. He said, in fact, that none of his ene- 
mies could be more desirous to send him out of 
life than he was to go. 



1641.] Civil War. 203 

Increasing demands of the Commons. 



Chapter IX. 

Civil War. 

FT1HE way in which the king came at last 
-*• to a final rupture with Parliament was 
this. The victory which the Commons gained 
in the case of Strafford had greatly increased 
their confidence and their power, and the king 
found, for some months afterward, that instead 
of being satisfied with the concessions he had 
made, they were continually demanding more. 
The more he yielded, the more they encroached. 
They grew, in a word, bolder and bolder, in 
proportion to their success. They considered 
themselves doing the state a great and good 
service by disarming -tyranny of its power. 
The king, on the other hand, considered them 
as undermining all the foundations of good 
government, and as depriving him of personal 
rights, the most sacred and solemn that could 
vest in any human being. 

It will be recollected that on former occa- 
sions, when the king had got into contention 
with a Parliament, he had dissolved it, and 



204 King Charles I. [1641. 

The king gradually loses his power. 

either attempted to govern without one, or else 
had caEed for a new election, hoping that the 
new members would be more compliant. But 
he could not dissolve the Parliament now. 
They had provided against this danger. At 
the time of the trial of Strafford, they brought 
in a bill into the Commons providing that 
thenceforth the Houses could not be- prorogued 
or dissolved without their own consent. The 
Commons, of course, passed the bill very read- 
ily. The Peers were more reluctant, but they 
did not dare to reject it. The king was ex- 
tremely unwilling to sign the bill ; but, amid 
the terrible excitements and dangers of that 
trial, he was overborne by the influences of dan- 
ger and intimidation which surrounded him. 
He signed the bill. Of course the Commons 
were, thereafter, their own masters. However 
dangerous or destructive the king might con- 
sider their course of conduct to be, he could now 
no longer arrest it, as heretofore, by a dissolu- 
tion. 

He went on, therefore, till the close of 1641, 
yielding slowly and reluctantly, and with many 
struggles, but still all the time yielding, to the 
resistless current which bore him along. At 
last he resolved to yield no longer. After re- 



1641.] Civil War. 205 

The king determines to change his policy. 

treating so long, he determined suddenly and 
desperately to face about and attack his ene- 
mies. The whole world looked on with aston- 
ishment at such a sudden change of his policy. 

The measure which he resorted to was this. 
He determined to select a number of the most 
efficient and prominent men in Parliament, 
who had been leaders in the proceedings against 
him, and demand their arrest, imprisonment, 
and trial, on a charge of high treason. The 
king was influenced to do this partly by the ad- 
vice of the queen, and of the ladies of the court, 
and other persons who did not understand how 
deep and strong the torrent was which they 
thus urged him to attempt to stem. They 
thought that if he would show a little courage 
and energy in facing these men, they would 
yield in their turn, and that their boldness and 
success was owing, in a great measure, to the 
king's want of spirit in resisting them. ' ' Strike 
boldly at them," said they ; " seize the leaders ; 
have them tried, and condemned, and executed. 
Threaten the rest with the same fate ; and fol- 
low up these measures with energetic and de- 
cisive action, and you will soon make a change 
in the aspect of affairs." 

The king adopted this policy, and he did 

S 



206 King Charles I. [1642. 

The king sends his officers to the House. 

make a change in the aspect of affairs, but not , 
such a change as his advisers had anticipated. 
The Commons were thrown suddenly into a 
state of astonishment one day by the appear- 
ance of a king's officer in the House, who rose 
and read articles of a charge of treason against 
five of the most influential and popular mem- 
bers. The officer asked that a committee 
should be appointed to hear the evidence 
against them which the king was preparing. 
The Commons, on hearing this, immediately 
voted, that if any person should attempt even 
to seize the papers of the persons accused, it 
should be lawful for them to resist such an at- 
tempt by every means in their power. 

The next day another officer appeared at the 
bar of the House of Commons, and spoke as fol- 
lows. " I am commanded by the king's majes- 
ty, my master, upon my allegiance, that I 
should come to the House of Commons, and re- 
quire of Mr. Speaker five gentlemen, members 
of the House of Commons ; and those gentle- 
men being delivered, I am commanded to ar- 
rest them in his majesty's name, on a charge 
of high treason." The Commons, on hearing 
this demand, voted that they would take it into 
consideration ! 



1642.] Civil War. 207 

The king goes to the House himself. 

The king's friends and advisers urged him to 
follow the matter up vigorously. Every thing 
depended, they said, on firmness and decision. 
The next day, accordingly, the king determined 
to go himself to the House, and make the de- 
mand in person. A lady of the court, who was 
made acquainted with this plan, sent notice of 
it to the House. In going, the king took his 
guard with him, and several personal attend- 
ants. The number of soldiers was said to be 
five hundred. He left this great retinue at the 
door, and he himself entered the House. The 
Commons, when they heard that he was com- 
ing, had ordered the five members who were 
accused to withdraw. They went out just be- 
fore the king came in. The king advanced to 
the speaker's chair, took his seat, and made the 
following address. 

" Gentlemen, — I am sorry for this occasion 
of coming unto you. Yesterday I sent a Ser- 
geant at Arms upon a very important occasion 
to apprehend some that by my Command were- 
accused of High Treason ; whereunto I did ex- 
pect Obedience and not a message. And I 
must declare unto you here, that albeit no king' 
that ever was in England shall be more careful 



208 King Charles I. [1642. 

The king's speech in the House. 

of your Privileges, to maintain them to the ut- 
termost of his Power, than I shall be ; yet you 
must know that in cases of Treason no Person 
hath a Privilege ; and therefore I am come to 
know if any of those Persons that were accused 
are here. For I must tell you, Gentlemen, 
that so long as these Persons that I have ac- 
cused (for no slight Crime, but for Treason) are 
here, I can not expect that this House will be 
in the right way that I do heartily wish it. 
Therefore I am come to tell you that I must 
have them -wherever I find them." 

After looking around, and finding that the 
members in question were not in the hall, "he 
continued : 

"Well! since I see the Birds are flown, I 
do expect from you that you shall send them 
unto me as soon as they return hither. But I 
assure you, on the Word of a King, I never did 
intend any Force, but shall proceed against 
them in a legal and fair way, for I never meant 
any other. 

" I will trouble you no more, but tell you I 
do expect, as soon as they come to the House, 
you will send them to me, otherwise I must 
take my own course to find them." 



1642.] Civil War. 209 

Great excitement in the House. The speaker's reply. 

The king's coming thus into the House of 
Commons, and demanding in person that they 
should act according to his instructions, was a 
very extraordinary circumstance — perhaps un- 
paralleled in English history. It produced the 
greatest excitement. When he had finished 
his address, he turned to the speaker and asked 
him where those men were. He had his guard 
ready at the door to seize them. It is difficult 
for us, in this country, to understand fully to 
how severe a test this sudden question put the 
presence of mind and courage of the speaker ; 
for we can not realize the profound and awful 
deference which was felt in those days for the 
command of a king. The speaker gained great 
applause for the manner in which he stood the 
trial. He fell upon his knees before the great 
potentate who had addressed him, and said, "I 
have, sir, neither eyes to see, nor tongue to 
speak, in this place, but as the House is pleased 
to direct me, whose servant I am. And I 
humbly ask pardon that I can not give any 
other answer to what your majesty is pleased 
to demand of me." 

The House was immediately in a state of 
great excitement and confusion. They called 
out " Privilege ! privilege /" meaning that 

S 2 



210 King Charles I. [1642. 

Results of the king's rashness. Committee of the Commons. 

their privileges were violated. They immedi- 
ately adjourned. News of the affair spread 
every where with the greatest rapidity, and 
produced universal and intense excitement. 
The king's friends were astonished at such an 
act of rashness and folly, which, it is said, only 
one of the king's advisers knew any thing about, 
and he immediately fled. The five members 
accused went that night into the city of Lon- 
don, and called on the government and people 
of London to protect them. The people armed 
themselves. In a word, the king found at 
night that he had raised a very threatening and 
terrible storm. 

The Commons met the next morning, but 
did not attempt to transact business. They 
simply voted that it was useless for them to 
proceed with their deliberations, while exposed 
to such violations of their rights. They ap- 
pointed a committee of twenty-four to inquire 
into and report the circumstances of the king's 
intrusion into their councils, and to consider 
how this breach of their privileges could be re- 
paired. They ordered this committee to sit in 
the city of London, where they might hope to 
be safe from such interruptions, and then the 
House adjourned for a week, to await the re- 
sult of the committee's deliberations. 



1642.] Civil War. 211 

The king goes to London. Cries of the people. 

The committee went to London. In the 
mean time, news went all over the kingdom 
that the House of Commons had been compell- 
ed to suspend its sittings on account of an ille- 
gal and unwarrantable interference with their 
proceedings on the part of the king. The king 
was alarmed ; but those who had advised him 
to adopt this measure told him that he must 
not falter now. He must persevere and carry 
his point, or all would be lost. 

He accordingly did persevere. He brought 
troops and arms to his palace at Whitehall, to 
be ready to defend it in case of attack. He 
sent in to London, and ordered the lord mayor 
to assemble the city authorities at the Guild- 
hall, which is the great city hall of London ; 
and then, with a retinue of noblemen, he went 
in to meet them. The people shouted, " Priv- 
ileges of Parliament ! privileges of Parlia- 
ment /" as he passed along. Some called out, 
" To your tents, O Israel /" which was the an- 
cient Hebrew cry of rebellion. The king, how- 
ever, persevered. When he reached the Guild- 
hall, he addressed the city authorities thus : 

" Gentlemen, — I am come to demand such 
Persons as I have already accused of High 
Treason, and do believe are shrouded in the 



212 King Charles I. [1642. 

Preparations to escort the committee to Westminster. 

City. I hope no good Man will keep them from 
Me. Their Offenses are Treason and Misde- 
meanors of a high Nature. I desire your As- 
sistance, that they may be brought to a legal 
Trial." Three days after this the king issued 
a proclamation, addressed to all magistrates and 
officers of justice every where, to arrest the ac- 
cused members and carry them to the Tower. 
In the mean time, the committee of twenty- 
four continued their session in London, exam- 
ining witnesses and preparing their report. 
When the time arrived for the House of Com- 
mons to meet again, which was on the 11th of 
January, the city made preparations to have 
the committee escorted in an imposing manner 
from the Guildhall to Westminster. A vast 
amount of the intercommunication and traffic 
between different portions of the city then, as 
now, took place upon the river, though in those 
days it was managed by watermen, who rowed 
small wherries to and fro. Innumerable steam- 
boats take the place of the wherries at the 
present day, and stokers and engineers have 
superseded the watermen. The watermen 
were then, however, a large and formidable 
body, banded together, like the other trades of 
London, in one great organization. This great 



1642.] Civil War. 213 

Report of the committee. Alarm of the king. 

company turned out on this occasion, and at- 
tended the committee in barges on the river, 
while the military companies of the city march- 
ed along the streets upon the land. The com- 
mittee themselves went in barges on the water, 
and all London flocked to see the spectacle. 
The king, hearing of these arrangements, was 
alarmed for his personal safety, and left his 
palace at Whitehall to go to Hampton Court, 
which was a little way out of town. 

The committee, after entering the House, 
reported that the transactions which they had 
been considering constituted a high breach of 
the privileges of the House, and was a seditious 
act, tending to a subversion of the peace of the 
kingdom ; and that the privileges of Parlia- 
ment, so violated and broken, could not be suffi- 
ciently vindicated, unless his majesty would be 
pleased to inform them who advised him to do 
such a deed. 

The king was more and more seriously 
alarmed. He found that the storm of public 
odium and indignation was too great for him to 
withstand. He began to fear for his own safe- 
ty more than ever. He removed from Hamp- 
ton Court to Windsor Castle, a stronger place, 
and more remote from London than Hampton 



214 King Charles I. [1642. 

The king yields. Increasing excitement. 

Court ; and he now determined to give up the 
contest. He sent a message, therefore, to the 
House, saying that, on further reflection, since 
so many persons had doubts whether his pro- 
ceedings against the five members were con- 
sistent with the privileges of Parliament, he 
would waive them, and the whole subject might 
rest until the minds of men were more com- 
posed, and then, if he proceeded against the ac- 
cused members at all, he would do so in a man- 
ner to which no exception could be taken. He 
said, also, he would henceforth be as careful of 
their privileges as he should be of his own life 
or crown. 

Thus he acknowledged himself vanquished 
in the struggle, but the acknowledgment came 
too late to save him. The excitement increased, 
and spread in every direction. The party of 
the king and that of the Parliament disputed 
for a few months about these occurrences, and 
others growing out of them, and then each be- 
gan to maneuver and struggle to get possession 
of the military power of the kingdom. The 
king, finding himself not safe in the vicinity of 
London, retreated to York, and began to as- 
semble and organize his followers. Parliament 
sent him a declaration that if he did not dis- 



1642.] Civil War. 215 

Civil war. Its nature. 

band the forces which he was assembling, they 
should be compelled to provide measures for se- 
curing the peace of the kingdom. The king 
replied by proclamations calling upon his sub- 
jects to join his standard. In a word, before 
midsummer, the country was plunged in the 
horrors of civil war. 

A civil war, that is, a war between two 
parties in the same country, is generally far 
more savage and sanguinary than any other. 
The hatred and the animosities which it cre- 
ates, ramify throughout the country, and pro- 
duce universal conflict and misery. If there 
were a war between France and England, 
there might be one, or perhaps two invading 
armies of Frenchmen attempting to penetrate 
into the interior. All England would be unit- 
ed against them. Husbands and wives, pa- 
rents and children, neighbors and friends, would 
be drawn together more closely than ever ; 
while the awful scenes of war and bloodshed, 
the excitement, the passion, the terror, would 
be confined to a few detached spots, or to a few 
lines of march which the invading armies had 
occupied. 

In a civil war, however, it is very different. 
Every distinct portion of the country, every 



216 King Charles I. [1642. 



Cruelties and miseries of civil war. 



village and hamlet, and sometimes almost every 
family, is divided against itself. The hostility 
and hatred, too, between the combatants, is al- 
ways far more intense and bitter than that 
which is felt against a foreign foe. "We might 
at first be surprised at this. We might imag- 
ine that where men are contending with their 
neighbors and fellow-townsmen, the recollec- 
tion of past friendships and good- will, and vari- 
ous lingering ties of regard, would moderate 
the fierceness of their anger, and make them 
more considerate and forbearing. But this is 
not found to be the case. Each party consid- 
ers the other as not only enemies, but traitors, 
and accordingly they hate and abhor each other 
with a double intensity. If an Englishman 
has a Frenchman to combat, he meets him 
with a murderous impetuosity, it is true, but 
without any special bitterness of animosity. 
He expects the Frenchman to be his enemy. 
He even thinks he has a sort of natural right 
to be so. He will kill him if he can ; but then, 
if he takes him prisoner, there is nothing in his 
feelings toward him to prevent his treating him 
with generosity, and even with kindness. He 
hates him, but there is a sort of good-nature in 
his hatred, after all. On the other hand, when 



1642.] Civil War. 217 

Taking sides between the kin" and Parliament. 



he fights against his countrymen in a civil war, 
he abhors and hates with unmingled bitterness 
the traitorous ingratitude which he thinks his 
neighbors and friends evince in turning enemies 
to their country. He can see no honesty, no 
truth, no courage in any thing they do. They 
are infinitely worse, in his estimation, than the 
most ferocious of foreign foes. Civil war is, 
consequently, always the means of far wider 
and more terrible mischief than any other hu- 
man calamity. 

In the contention between Charles and the 
Parliament, the various elements of the social 
state adhered to one side or the other, according 
to their natural predilections. The Episcopal- 
ians generally joined the king, the Presbyteri- 
ans the Parliament. The gentry and the no- 
bility favored the king; the mechanics, arti- 
sans, merchants, and common people the Par- 
liament. The rural districts of country, which, 
were under the control of the great landlords, 
the king ; the cities and towns, the Parliament. 
The gay, and fashionable, and worldly, the 
king ; the serious-minded and austere, the Par- 
liament. Thus every thing was divided. The 
quarrel ramified to every hamlet and to every 
14* 



218 King Charles I. [1642. 

Preparations for war. Fruitless negotiations. 

fireside, and the peace and happiness of the 
realm were effectually destroyed. 

Both sides began to raise armies and to pre- 
pare for war. Before commencing hostilities, 
however, the king was persuaded* by his coun- 
selors to send a messenger to London and pro- 
pose some terms of accommodation. He ac- 
cordingly sent the Earl of Southampton to the 
House of Peers, and two other persons to the 
House of Commons. He had no expectation, 
probably, of making peace, but he wanted to 
gain time to get his army together, and also to 
strengthen his cause among the people by show- 
ing a disposition to do all in his power to avoid 
open war. The messengers of the king went 
to London, and made their appearance in the 
two houses of Parliament. 

The House of Lords ordered the Earl of 
Southampton to withdraw, and to send his com- 
munication in in writing, and in the mean time 
to retire out of London, and wait for their an- 
swer. The House of Commons, in the same 
spirit of hostility and defiance, ordered the mes- 
sengers which had been sent to them to come 
to the bar, like humble petitioners or criminals, 
and make their communication there. 

The propositions of the king to the houses 



1642.] Civil War. 219 

Messages between the king and Parliament. 

of Parliament were, that they should appoint a 
certain number of commissioners, and he also 
the same number, to meet and confer together, 
in hope of agreeing upon some conditions of 
peace. The houses passed a vote in reply, de- 
claring that they had been doing all in their 
power to preserve the peace of the kingdom, 
while the king had been interrupting and dis- 
turbing it by his military gatherings, and by 
proclamations, in which they were called trai- 
tors ; and that they could enter into no treaty 
with him until he disbanded the armies which 
he had collected, and recalled his proclamations. 

To this the king replied that he had never 
intended to call them traitors ; and that when 
they would recall their declarations and votes 
stigmatizing those who adhered to him as trai- 
tors, he would recall his proclamations. Thus 
messages passed back and forth two or three 
times, each party criminating the other, and 
neither willing to make the concessions which 
the other required. At last all hope of an ac- 
commodation was abandoned, and both sides 
prepared for war. 

The nobility and gentry flocked to the king's 
standard. They brought their plate, their jew- 
els, and their money to provide funds. Some 



220 King Charles I. [1643. 

Ravages of the war. Death of Hampden. 

of them brought their servants. There were 
two companies in the king's guard, one of which 
consisted of gentlemen, and the other of their 
servants. These two companies were always 
kept together. There was the greatest zeal 
and enthusiasm among the upper classes to 
serve the king, and equal zeal and enthusiasm 
among the common people to serve the Parlia- 
ment. The war continued for four years. 
During all this time the armies marched and 
countermarched all over the kingdom, carrying 
ruin and destruction wherever they went, and 
plunging the whole country in misery. 

At one of the battles which was fought, the 
celebrated John Hampden, the man who would 
not pay his ship money, was slain. He had. 
been a very energetic and efficient officer on 
the Parliamentary side, and was much dreaded 
by the forces of the king. At one of the battles 
between Prince Rupert, Charles's nephew, and 
the army of the Parliament, the prince brought 
to the king's camp a large number of prisoners 
which he had taken. One of the prisoners said 
he was confident that Hampden was hurt, for 
he saw him riding off the field before the battle 
was over, with his head hanging down, and his 
hands clasping the neck of his horse. They 



1643.] Civil War. 



Prince Rupert. His knowledge and ingenuity. 

heard the next day that he had been wounded 
in the shoulder. Inflammation and fever en- 
sued, and he died a few days afterward in great 
agony. 

This Prince Rupert was a very famous char- 
acter in all these wars. He was young and ar- 
dent, and full of courage and enthusiasm. He 
was always foremost and ready to embark in 
the most daring undertakings. He was the 
son of the king's sister Elizabeth, who married 
the Elector Palatine, as narrated in a preceding 
chapter. He was famous not only for his mil- 
itary skill and attainments, but for his knowl- 
edge of science, and for his ingenuity in many 
philosophical arts. There is a mode of engrav- 
ing called mezzotinto, which is somewhat easier 
of execution than the common mode, and pro- 
duces a peculiar effect. Prince Rupert is said 
to have been the inventor of it, though, as is 
the case with almost all other inventions, there 
is a dispute about it. He discovered a mode 
of dropping melted glass into water so as to 
form little pear-shaped globules, with a long 
slender tail. These globules have this remark- 
able property, that if the tip of the tail is bro- 
ken off ever so gently, the whole flies into 
atoms with an explosion. These drops of glass 



224 King Charles I. [1643. 

Progress of the war. Difficulty of making peace. 

are often exhibited at the present day, and are 
called Prince Rupert's drops. The prince also 
discovered a very tenacious composition of met- 
als for casting cannon. As artillery is neces- 
sarily very heavy, and very difficult to be trans- 
ported on marches and upon the field of battle, 
it becomes very important to discover such me- 
tallic compounds as have the greatest strength 
and tenacity in resisting the force of an explo- 
sion. Prince Rupert invented such a com- 
pound, which is called by his name. 

There were not only a great many battles 
and fierce encounters between the two great 
parties in this civil war, but there were also, 
at times, temporary cessations of the hostilities, 
and negotiations for peace. But it is very 
hard to make peace between two powers en- 
gaged in civil war. Each considers the other 
as acting the part of rebels and traitors, and 
there is a difficulty, almost insuperable, in the 
way of even opening negotiations between them. 
Still the people became tired of the war. At 
one time, when the king had made some propo- 
sitions which the Parliament would not accept, 
an immense assemblage of women collected to- 
gether, with white ribbons in their hats, to go 
to the House of Commons with a petition for 



1643.] Civil War. 225 

The women clamor for peace. Queen Henrietta's arrival in England. 

peace. When they reached the door of the hall 
their number was five thousand. They called 
out, " Peace ! peace ! Give us those traitors 
that are against peace, that we may tear them 
to pieces." The guards who were stationed at 
the door were ordered to fire at this crowd, 
loading their guns, however, only with powder. 
This, it was thought, would frighten them 
away ; but the women only laughed at the 
volley, and returned it with stones and brick- 
bats, and drove the guards away. Other troops 
were then sent for, who charged upon the wom- 
en with their swords, and cut them in their 
faces and hands, and thus at length dispersed 
them. 

During the progress of the war, the queen re- 
turned from the Continent and joined the king. 
She had some difficulty, however, and encoun- 
tered some personal danger, in her efforts to re- 
turn to her husband. The vice-admiral, who 
had command of the English ships off the coast, 
received orders to intercept her. He watched 
for her. She contrived, however, to elude his 
vigilance, though there were four ships in her 
convoy. She landed at a town called Burling- 
ton, or Bridlington, in Yorkshire. This town 
stands in a very picturesque situation, a little 
15 



226 King Charles I. [1643. 

The vice-admiral cannonades the queen. 

south of a famous promontory called Flam- 
borough Head, of which there is a beautiful 
view from the pier of the town. 

The queen succeeded in landing here. On 
her arrival at the town, she found herself 
worn down with the anxiety and fatigue of the 
voyage, and she wanted to stop a few days to 
rest. She took up her residence in a house 
which was on the quay, and, of course, near 
the water. The quay, as it is called, in these 
towns, is a street on the margin of the water, 
with a wall, but no houses next the sea. The 
vice-admiral arrived at the town the second 
night after the queen had landed. He was 
vexed that his expected prize had escaped him. 
He brought his ships up near to the town, and 
began to fire toward the house in which the 
queen was lodging. 

This was at five o'clock in the morning. 
The queen and her attendants were in their 
beds, asleep. The reports of the cannon from 
the ships, the terrific whistling of the balls 
through the air, and the crash of the houses 
which the balls struck, aroused the whole vil- 
lage from their slumbers, and threw them into 
consternation. The people soon came to the 
house where the queen was lodging, and begged 



1643.] Civil War. 229 

The queen's danger. She seeks shelter in a trench. 

her to fly. They said that the neighboring 
houses were blown to pieces, and that her own 
would soon be destroyed, and she herself would 
be killed. They may, however, have been in- 
fluenced more by a regard to their own safety 
than to hers in these injunctions, as it must 
have been a great object with the villagers to 
effect the immediate removal of a visitor who 
was the means of bringing upon them so terri- 
ble a danger. 

These urgent entreaties of the villagers were 
soon enforced by two cannon-balls, which fell, 
one after another, upon the roof of the house, 
and, crashing their way through the roof and 
the floors, went down, without seeming to re- 
gard the resistance, from the top to the bottom. 
The queen hastily put on her clothes, and went 
forth with her attendants on foot, the balls 
from the ships whistling after them all the way. 

One of her servants was killed. The rest of 
the fugitives, finding their exposure so great, 
stopped at a sort of trench which they came 
to, at the end of a field, such as is dug com- 
monly, in England, on one side of the hedge, 
to make the barrier more impassable to the ani- 
mals which it is intended to confine. This 
trench, with the embankment formed by the 

U 



230 King Charles I. [1643. 

The queen joins her husband. Her influence. 

earth thrown out of it, on which the hedge is 
usually planted, afforded them protection. They 
sought shelter in it, and remained there for two 
hours, like besiegers in the approaches to a 
town, the balls passing over their heads harm- 
lessly, though sometimes covering them with 
the earth which they threw up as they bound- 
ed by. At length the tide began to ebb, and 
the vice-admiral was in danger of being left 
aground. He weighed his anchors and with- 
drew, and the queen and her party were re- 
lieved. Such a cannonading of a helpless and 
defenseless woman is a barbarity which could 
hardly take place except in a civil war. 

The queen rejoined her husband, and she 
rendered him essential service in many ways. 
She had personal influence enough to raise^both 
money and men for his armies, and so contrib- 
uted very essentially to the strength of his 
party. At last she returned to the Continent 
again, and went to Paris, where she was still 
actively employed in promoting his cause. At 
one of the battles in which the king was de- 
feated, the Parliamentary army seized his bag- 
gage, and found among his papers his corre- 
spondence with the queen. They very ungen- 
erously ordered it to be published, as the let- 



1646.] Civil War. 231 

The royal cause declines. The Prince of Wales. 

ters seemed to show a vigorous determination 
on the part of the king not to yield in the con- 
test without obtaining from the Parliament 
and their adherents full and ample concessions 
to his claims. 

As time rolled on, the strength of the royal 
party gradually wasted away, while that of 
Parliament seemed to increase, until it became 
evident that the latter would, in the end, ob- 
tain the victory. The king retreated from 
place to place, followed by his foes, and grow- 
ing weaker and more discouraged after every 
conflict. His son, the Prince of Wales, was 
then about fifteen years of age. He sent him 
to the western part of the island, with direc- 
tions that, if affairs should still go against him, 
the boy should be taken in time out of the 
country, and join his mother in Paris. The 
danger grew more and more imminent, and 
they who had charge of the young prince sent 
him first to Scilly, and then to Jersey — islands 
in the Channel — whence he made his escape to 
Paris, and joined his mother. Fifteen years 
afterward he returned to London with great 
pomp and parade, and was placed upon the 
throne by universal acclamation. 

At last the king himself, after being driven 



232 King Charles 1. [1646. 

Hopeless condition of the king. Invasion by the Scots. 

from one place of refuge to another, retreated 
to Oxford and intrenched himself there. Here 
he spent the winter of 1646 in extreme depres- 
sion and distress. His friends deserted him ; 
his resources were expended; his hopes were 
extinguished. He sent proposals of peace to 
the Parliament, and offered, himself, to come 
to London, if they would grant him a safe-con- 
duct. In reply, they forbade him to come. 
They would listen to no propositions, and would 
make no terms. The case, they saw, was in 
their own hands, and they determined on un- 
conditional submission. They hemmed the 
king in on all sides at his retreat in Oxford, 
and reduced him to despair. 

In the mean time, the Scots, a year or two 
before this, had raised an army and crossed the 
northern frontier, and entered England. They 
were against monarchy and Episcopacy, but 
they were, in some respects, a separate enemy 
from those against whom the king had been 
contending so long ; and he began to think 
that he had perhaps better fall into their hands 
than into those of his English foes, if he must 
submit to one or to the other. He hesitated 
for some time what course to take ; but at last, 
after receiving representations of the favorable 



1646.] Civil War. 233 

The king surrenders to the Scots. End of the civil war. 

feeling which prevailed in regard to him in the 
Scottish army, he concluded to make his es- 
cape from Oxford and surrender himself to 
them. He accordingly did so, and the civil 
war was ended. 

U2 



234 King Charles I. [1646. 

The king's escape from Hampton Court. 



Chapter X. 

The Captivity. 

FT! HE circumstances of King Charles's sur- 
-*■ render to the Scots were these. He knew 
that he was surrounded by his enemies in Ox- 
ford, and that they would not allow him to es- 
cape if they could prevent it. He and his 
friends, therefore, formed the following plan to 
elude them. 

They sent word to the commanders of each 
of the several gates of the city, on a certain 
day, that during the ensuing night three men 
would have to pass out on business of the 
king's, and that when the men should appear 
and give a certain signal, they were to be al- 
lowed to pass. The officer at each gate receiv- 
ed this command without knowing that a sim- 
ilar one had been sent to the others. 

Accordingly, about midnight, the parties of 
men were dispatched, and they went out at the 
several gates. The king himself was in one of 
these parties. There were two other persons 
with him. One of these persons was a certain 



1646.] The Captivity. 237 

The king delivers himself to the Scots. His reception. 

Mr. Ashburnham, and the king was disguised 
as his servant. They were all on horseback, 
and the king had a valise upon the horse be- 
hind him, so as to complete his disguise. This 
was on the 27th of April. The next day, or 
very soon after, it was known at Oxford that 
his majesty was gone, but no one could tell in 
what direction, for there was no means even of 
deciding by which of the gates he had left the 
city. 

The Scotch were, at this time, encamped be- 
fore the town of Newark, which is on the Trent, 
in the heart of England, and about one hund- 
red and twenty miles north of London. There 
was a magnificent castle at Newark in those 
days, which made the place very strong. The 
town held out for the king ; for, though they had 
been investing it for some time, they had not 
yet succeeded in compelling the governor to 
surrender. The king concluded to proceed to 
Newark and enter the Scottish camp. He con- 
sidered it, or, rather, tried to have it considered, 
that he was coming to join them as their mon- 
arch. They were going to consider it surren- 
dering to them as their prisoner. The king him- 
self must have known how it would be, but it 
made his sense of humiliation a little less poig- 



238 King Charles I. [1646. 

Proclamation by Parliament. Surrender of Newark. 

nant to carry this illusion with him as long as 
it was possible to maintain it. 

As soon as the Parliament found that the 
king had made his escape from Oxford, they 
were alarmed, and on the 4th of May they is- 
sued an order to this effect,'" That what per- 
son soever should harbor and conceal, or should 
know of the harboring or concealing of the 
king's person, and should not immediately re- 
veal it to the speakers of both houses, should be 
proceeded against as a traitor to the Common- 
wealth, and die without mercy." The proc- 
lamation of this order, however, did not result 
in arresting the flight of the king. On the day 
after it was issued, he arrived safely at Newark. 

The Scottish general, whose name was Les- 
ley, immediately represented to the king that 
for his own safety it was necessary that they 
should retire toward the northern frontier ; but 
they could not so retire, he said, unless Newark 
should first surrender. They accordingly in- 
duced the king to send in orders to the govern- 
or of the castle to give up the place. The 
Scots took possession of it, and, after having 
garrisoned it, moved with their army toward 
the north, the king and General Lesley being 
in the van. 



1646.] The Captivity. 239 

Negotiations about the disposal of the king's person. 

They treated the king with great distinction, 
but guarded him very closely, and sent word to 
the Parliament that he was in their possession. 
There ensued long negotiations and much de- 
bate. The question was, at first, whether the 
English or Scotch should have the disposal of 
the king's person. The English said that they, 
and not the Scots, were the party making war 
upon him ; that they had conquered his armies, 
and hemmed him in, and reduced him to the 
necessity of submission ; and that he had been 
taken captive on English soil, and ought, con- 
sequently, to be delivered into the hands of the 
English Parliament. The Scots replied that 
though he had been taken in England, he was 
their king as well as the king of England, and 
had made himself their enemy ; and that, as he 
had fallen into their hands, he ought to remain 
at their disposal. To this the English rejoined, 
that the Scots, in taking him, had not acted on 
their own account, but as the allies, and, as it 
were, the agents of the English, and that they 
ought to consider the king as a captive taken 
for them, and hold him subject to their disposal. 

They could not settle the question. In the 
mean time the Scottish army drew back to- 
ward the frontier, taking the king with them. 



240 King Charles I. [1646. 

The Scots surrender the king. Whether he was sold. 

About this time a negotiation sprung up be- 
tween the Parliament and the Scots for the pay- 
ment of the expenses which the Scottish army 
had incurred in their campaign. The Scots 
sent in an account amounting to two millions 
of pounds. The English objected to a great 
many of the charges, and offered them two 
hundred thousand pounds. Finally it was set- 
tled that four hundred thousand pounds should 
be paid. This arrangement was made early in 
September. In January the Scots agreed to 
give up the king into the hands of the English 
Parliament. 

The world accused the Scots of selling their 
king to his enemies for four hundred thousand 
pounds. The Scots denied that there was any 
connection between the two transactions above 
referred to. They received the money on ac- 
count of their just claims ; and they afterward 
agreed to deliver up the king, because they 
thought it right and proper so to do. The 
friends of the king, however, were never satis- 
fied that there was not a secret understanding, 
between the parties, that the money paid was 
not the price of the king's delivery; and as 
this delivery resulted in his death, they called 
it the price of blood. 



1646.] The Captivity. 241 

The king's amusements in captivity. Hoknby House. 

Charles was at Newcastle when they came 
to this decision. His mind had been more at 
ease since his surrender to the Scots, and he 
was accustomed to amuse himself and while 
away the time of his captivity by various 
games. He was playing chess when the intel- 
ligence was brought to him that he was to be 
delivered up to the English Parliament. It 
was communicated to him in a letter. He 
read it, and then went on with his game, and 
none of those around him could perceive by his 
air and manner that the intelligence which the 
letter contained was any thing extraordinary. 
Perhaps he was not aware of the magnitude of 
the change in his condition and prospects which 
the communication announced. 

There was at this time, at a town called Holm- 
by or Holdenby, in Northamptonshire, a beauti- 
ful palace which was known by the name of 
Holmby House. King Charles's mother had pur- 
chased this palace for him when he was the Duke 
of York, in the early part of his life, while his fa- 
ther, King James, was on the throne, and his 
older brother was the heir apparent. It was a 
very stately and beautiful edifice. The house 
was fitted up in a very handsome manner, and 
all suitable accommodations provided for the 
16 X 



242 King Charles I. [1646. 

Contest about forms. Intolerance. 

king's reception. He had many attendants, and 
every desirable convenience and luxury of liv- 
ing ; but, though the war was over, there was 
still kept up between the king and his enemies a 
petty contest about forms and punctilios, which 
resulted from the spirit of intolerance which char- 
acterized the age. The king wanted his own 
Episcopal chaplains. The Parliament would 
not consent to this, but sent him two Presby- 
terian chaplains. The king would not allow 
them to say grace at the table, but performed 
this duty himself; and on the Sabbath, when 
they preached in his chapel, he never would at- 
tend. 

One singular instance of this sort of bigotry, 
and of the king's presence of mind under the 
action of it, took place while the king was at 
Newcastle. They took him one day to the 
chapel in the castle to hear a Scotch Presby- 
terian who was preaching to the garrison. 
The Scotchman preached a long discourse 
pointed expressly at the king. Those preachers 
prided themselves on the fearlessness with 
which, on such occasions, they discharged what 
they called their duty. To cap the climax of 
his faithfulness, the preacher gave out, at the 



164(5.] The Captivity. 243 

The Scotch preacher. The king's presence of mind. 

close of the sermon, the hymn, thus : " We will 
sing the fifty-first Psalm : 

" ' Why dost thou, tyrant, boast thyself, 
Thy wicked works to praise V" 

As the congregation were about to com- 
mence the singing, the king cast his eye along 
the page, and found in the fifty-sixth hymn one 
which he thought would be more appropriate. 
He rose, and said, in a very audible manner, 
" We will sing the fifty -sixth Psalm : 

" ' Have mercy, Lord, on me I pray, 
For men would me devour.' " 

The congregation, moved by a sudden im- 
pulse of religious generosity extremely unusual 
in those days, immediately sang the psalm 
which the king had chosen. 

While he was at Holmby the king used 
sometimes to go, escorted by a guard, to cer- 
tain neighboring villages where there were 
bowling-greens. One day, while he was going 
on one of these excursions, a man, in the dress 
of a laborer, appeared standing on a bridge as 
he passed, and handed him a packet. The 
commissioners who had charge of Charles — for 
some of them always attended him on these ex- 



244 King Charles T. [1646. 

The king receives letters from the queen. The army. 

cursions — seized the man. The packet was 
from the queen. The king told the commis- 
sioners that the letter was only to ask him 
some question about the disposal of his son, the 
young prince, who was then with her in Paris. 
They seemed satisfied, but they sent the dis- 
guised messenger to London, and the Parlia- 
ment committed him to prison, and sent down 
word to dismiss all Charles's own attendants, 
and to keep him thenceforth in more strict con- 
finement. 

In the mean time, the Parliament, having 
finished the war, were ready to disband the 
army. But the army did not want to be dis- 
banded. They would not be disbanded. The 
officers knew very well that if their troops were 
dismissed, and they were to return to their 
homes as private citizens, all their importance 
would be gone. There followed long debates 
and negotiations between the army and the 
Parliament, which ended, at last, in an open 
rupture. It is almost always so at the end of 
a revolution. The military power is found to 
have become too strong for the civil institu- 
tions of the country to control it. 

Oliver Cromwell, who afterward became so 
distinguished in the days of the Commonwealth, 



1647.] The Captivity. 245 

Oliver Cromwell. His plan to seize the king. 

was at this time becoming the most influential 
leader of the army. He was not the command- 
er-in-chief in form, but he was the great plan- 
ner and manager in fact. He was a man of 
great sternness and energy of character, and 
was always ready for the most prompt and dar- 
ing action. He conceived the design of seizing 
the king's person at Holmby, so as to take him 
away from the control of the Parliament, and 
transfer him to that of the army. This plan 
was executed on the 4th of June, about two 
months after the king had been taken to Holm- 
by House. The abduction was effected in the 
following manner. 

Cromwell detached a strong party of choice 
troops, under the command of an officer by the 
name of Joyce, to carry the plan into effect. 
These troops were all horsemen, so that their 
movements could be made with the greatest 
celerity. They arrived at Holmby House at 
midnight. The cornet, for that was the mili- 
tary title by which Joyce was designated, drew 
up his horsemen about the palace, and demand- 
ed entrance. Before his company arrived, how- 
ever, there had been an alarm that they were 
coming, and the guards had been doubled. 
The officers in command asked the cornet what 

X2 



246 King Charles I. [1647. 

Cornet Joyce. He forces admittance to the king. 

was his name and business. He replied that 
he was Cornet Joyce, and that his business 
was to speak to the king. They asked him by 
whom he was sent, and he replied that he was 
sent by himself, and that he must and would 
see the king. They then commanded their 
soldiers to stand by their arms, and be ready to 
fire when the word should be given. They, 
however, perceived that Joyce and his force 
were a detachment from the army to which 
they themselves belonged, and concluding to 
receive them as brothers, they opened the gates 
and let them in. 

The cornet stationed sentinels at the doors 
of those apartments of the castle which were 
occupied by the Scotch commissioners who had 
the king in charge, and then went himself di- 
rectly to the king's chamber. He had a pistol 
loaded and cocked in his hand. He knocked 
at the door. There were four grooms in wait- 
ing : they rebuked him for making such a dis- 
turbance at that time of the night, and told 
him that he should wait until the morning if 
he had any communication to make to the 
king. 

The cornet would not accede to this proposi- 
tion, but knocked violently at the door, the 



1647.] The Captivity. 247 

Joyce's interview with the king. His " instructions." 

servants being deterred from interfering by- 
dread of the loaded pistol, and by the air and 
manner of their visitor, which told them very 
plainly that he was not to be trifled with. 
The king finally heard the disturbance, and, 
on learning the cause, sent out word that Joyce 
must go away and wait till morning, for he 
would not get up to see him at that hour. 
The cornet, as one of the historians of the time 
expresses it, "huffed and retired." The next 
morning he had an interview with the king. 

When he was introduced to the king's apart- 
ment in the morning, the king said that he 
wished to have the Scotch commissioners pres- 
ent at the interview. Joyce replied that the 
commissioners had nothing to do now but to re- 
turn to the Parliament at London. The king 
then said that he wished to see his instructions. 
The cornet replied that he would show them to 
him, and he sent out to order his horsemen to 
parade in the inner court of the palace, where 
the king could see them from his windows ; 
and then, pointing them out to the king, he 
said, " These, sir, are my instructions." The 
king, who, in all the trials and troubles of his 
life of excitement and danger, took every thing 
quietly and calmly, looked at the men atten- 



248 King Charles I. [1647. 

The king taken to Cambridge. Closely guarded. 

tively. They were fine troops, well mounted 
and armed. He then turned to the cornet, and 
said, with a smile, that " his instructions were 
in fair characters, and could be read without 
spelling." The cornet then said that his orders 
were to take the king away with him. The 
king declined going, unless the commissioners 
went too. The cornet made no objection, say- 
ing that the commissioners might do as they 
pleased about accompanying him, but that he 
himself must go. 

The party set off from Holmby and traveled 
two days, stopping at night at the houses of 
friends to their cause. They reached Cam- 
bridge, where the leading officers of the army 
received the king, rendering him every possible 
mark of deference and respect. From Cam- 
bridge he was conducted by the leaders of the 
army from town to town, remaining sometimes 
several days at a place. He was attended by 
a strong guard, and was treated every where 
with the utmost consideration and honor. He 
was allowed some little liberty, in riding out 
and in amusements, but every precaution was 
taken to prevent the possibility of an escape. 

The people collected every where into the 
places through which he had to pass, and his 



1647.] The Captivity. 249 

The king's evil. The king removed to Hampton Court. 

presence-chamber was constantly thronged. 
This was not altogether on account of their 
respect and veneration for him as king, but 
it arose partly from a very singular cause. 
There is a certain disease called the scrofula, 
which in former times had the name of the 
King's Evil. It is a very unmanageable and 
obstinate disorder, resisting all ordinary modes 
of treatment ; but in the days of King Charles, 
it was universally believed by the common peo- 
ple of England, that if a king touched a pa- 
tient afflicted with this disease, he would recov- 
er. This was the reason why it was called the 
king's evil. It was the evil that kings only 
could cure. Now, as kings seldom traveled 
much about their dominions, whenever one did 
make such a journey, the people embraced the 
opportunity to bring all the cases which could 
possibly be considered as scrofula to the line of 
his route, in order that he might touch the per- 
sons afflicted and heal them. 

In the course of the summer the king was 
conducted to Hampton Court, a beautiful pal- 
ace on the Thames, a short distance above Lon- 
don. Here he remained for some time. He 
had an interview here with two of his children. 
The oldest son was still in France. The two 
16* T 



250 King Charles I. [1647. 

The king's interview with his children. Contentions. 

whom he saw here were the Duke of Glouces- 
ter and the Princess Elizabeth. He found that 
they were under the care of a nobleman of high 
rank, and that they were treated with great 
consideration. Charles was extremely grati- 
fied and pleased with seeing these members of 
his family again, after so long a separation. 
His feelings of domestic affection were very 
strong. 

The king remained at Hampton Court two 
or three months. During this time, London, 
and all the region about it, was kept in a con- 
tinual state of excitement by the contentions 
of the army #nd Parliament, and the endless 
negotiations which they attempted with each 
other and with the king. During all this time 
the king was in a sort of elegant and honora- 
ble imprisonment in his palace at Hampton 
Court ; but he found the restraints to which he 
was subjected, and the harassing cares which 
the contests between these two great powers 
brought upon him, so great, that he determined 
to make his escape from the thraldom which 
bound him. He very probably thought that he 
could again raise his standard, and collect an 
army to fight in his cause. Or perhaps he 
thought of making his escape from the country 



1647.] The Captivity. 251 

The king's escape from Hampton Court. 

altogether. It is not improbable that he was 
not decided himself which of these plans to 
pursue, but left the question to be determined 
by the circumstances in which he should find 
himself when he had regained his freedom. 

At any rate, he made his escape. One even- 
ing, about ten o'clock, attendants came into his 
room at Hampton Court, and found that he had 
gone. There were some letters upon the table 
which he had left, directed to the Parliament, 
to the general of the army, and to the officer 
who had guarded him at Hampton Court. 
The king had left the palace an hour or two be- 
fore. He passed out at a private door, which 
admitted him to a park connected with the pal- 
ace. He went through the park by a walk 
which led down to the water, where there was 
a boat ready for him. He crossed the river in 
the boat, and on the opposite shore he found 
several officers and some horses ready to receive 
him. He mounted one of the horses, and the 
party rode rapidly away. 

They traveled all night, and arrived, toward 
morning, at the residence of a countess on 
whose attachment to him and fidelity he placed 
great reliance. The countess concealed him in 
her house, though it was understood by all con- 



252 King Charles I. [1648. 

Carisbrooke Castle. Colonel Hammond. 

cerned that this was only a temporary place of 
refuge. He could not long be concealed here, 
and her residence was not provided with any 
means of defense ; so that, immediately on 
their arrival at the countess's, the king and the 
few friends who were with him began to con- 
cert plans for a more secure retreat. 

The house of the countess was on the south- 
ern coast of England, near the Isle of Wight. 
There was a famous castle in those days upon 
this island, near the center of it, called Caris- 
brooke Castle. The ruins of it, which are very 
extensive, still remain. This castle was under 
the charge of Colonel Hammond, who was at 
that time governor of the island. Colonel 
Hammond was a near relative of one of King 
Charles's chaplains, and the king thought it 
probable that he would espouse his cause. He 
accordingly sent two of the gentlemen who had 
accompanied him to the Isle of Wight to see 
Colonel Hammond, and inquire of him whether 
he would receive and protect the king if he 
would come to him. But he charged them not 
to let Hammond know where he was, unless 
he would first solemnly promise to protect him, 
and not to subject him to any restraint. 

The messengers went, and, to the kind's sur- 



1648.] The Captivity. 255 

The king again a prisoner. His confinement in Carisbrooke Castle. 

prise, brought back Hammond with them. The 
king asked them whether they had got his writ- 
ten promise to protect him. They answered 
no, but that they could depend upon him as a 
man of honor. The king was alarmed. " Then 
you have betrayed me," said he, " and I am his 
prisoner." The messengers were then, in their 
turn, alarmed at having thus disappointed and 
displeased the king, and they offered to kill 
Hammond on the spot, and to provide some 
other means of securing the king's safety. The 
king, however, would not sanction any such 
proceeding, but put himself under Hammond's 
charge, and was conveyed to Carisbrooke Cas- 
tle. He was received with every mark of re- 
spect, but was very carefully guarded. It was 
about the middle of November that these events 
took place. 

Hammond notified the Parliament that 
King Charles was in his hands, and sent for 
directions from them as to what he should do. 
Parliament required that he should be care- 
fully guarded, and they appropriated £5000 
for the expenses of his support. The king 
remained in this confinement more than a 
year, while the Parliament and the army 



256 King Charles I. [1648. 

Negotiations. The king's employments. 

were struggling for the mastery of the king- 
dom. 

He spent his time, during this long period, 
in various pursuits calculated to beguile the 
weary days, and he sometimes planned schemes 
for escape. There were also a great many 
messages and negotiations going between the 
king and the Parliament, which resulted in 
nothing but to make the breach between them 
wider and wider. Sometimes the king was 
silent and depressed. At other times he seem- 
ed in his usual spirits. He read serious books 
a great deal, and wrote. There is a famous 
book, which was found in manuscript after his 
death among his papers, in his handwriting, 
which it is supposed he wrote at this time. 
He was allowed to take walks upon the castle 
wall, which was very extensive, and he had 
some other amusements which served to occu- 
py iiis leisure time. He found his confine- 
ment, however, in spite of all these mitiga- 
tions, wearisome and hard to bear. 

There were some schemes attempted to en- 
able him to regain his liberty. There was one 
very desperate attempt. It seems that Ham- 
mond, suspecting that the king was plotting 
an escape, dismissed the king's own servants 



1648.] The Captivity. 257 

Unsuccessful attempts to escape. Osborne. 

and put others in their places — persons in whom 
he supposed he could more implicitly rely. 
One of these men, whose name was Burley, 
was exasperated at being thus dismissed. He 
went through the town of Carisbrooke, beating 
a drum, and calling upon the people to rise 
and rescue their sovereign from his captivity. 
The governor of the castle, hearing of this, sent 
out a small body of men, arrested Burley, and 
hanged and quartered him. The king was 
made a close prisoner immediately after this 
attempt. 

Notwithstanding this, another attempt was 
soon made by the king himself, which came 
much nearer succeeding. There was a man 
by the name of Osborne, whom Hammond em- 
ployed as a personal attendant upon the king. 
He was what was called gentleman usher. 
The king succeeded in gaining this person's fa- _ 
vor so much by his affability and his general 
demeanor, that one day he put a little paper 
into one of the king's gloves, which it was a 
part of his office to hold on certain occasions, 
and on this paper he had written that he was 
at the king's service. At first Charles was 
afraid that this offer was only a treacherous 
one ; but at length he confided in him. In the 
17 Y2 



258 King Charles I. [1648. 

Plan of escape. Rolf's treacherous design. 

mean time, there was a certain man by the 
name of Rolf in the garrison, who conceived 
the design of enticing the king away from the 
castle on the promise of promoting his escape, 
and then murdering him. Rolf thought that 
this plan would please the Parliament, and that 
he himself, and those who should aid him in 
the enterprise, would be rewarded. He pro- 
posed this scheme to Osborne, and asked him 
to join in the execution of it. 

Osborne made the whole plan known to the 
king. The king, on reflection, said to Osborne, 
" Very well; continue in communication with 
Rolf, and help him mature his plan. Let him 
thus aid in getting me out of the castle, and 
we will make such arrangements as to pre- 
vent the assassination." Osborne did so. He 
also gained over some other soldiers who were 
employed as sentinels near the place of escape. 
Osborne and Rolf furnished the king with a 
saw and a file, by means of which he sawed off 
some iron bars which guarded one of his win- 
dows. They were then, on a certain night, to 
be ready with a few attendants on the outside 
to receive the king as he descended, and con- 
vey him away. 

In the mean time, Rolf and Osborne had 



1648.] The Captivity. 259 

Rolf toiled. The king made a closer prisoner. 

each obtained a number of confederates, those 
of the former supposing that the plan was to 
assassinate the king, while those of the latter 
understood that the plan was to assist him in 
escaping from captivity. Some expressions 
which were dropped by one of this latter class 
alarmed Rolf, and led him to suspect some 
treachery. He accordingly took the precau- 
tion to provide a number of armed men, and to 
have them ready at the window, so that he 
should be sure to be strong enough to secure 
the king immediately on his descent from the 
window. When the time came for the escape, 
the king, before getting out, looked below, and, 
seeing so many armed men, knew at once that 
Rolf had discovered their designs, and refused 
to descend. He quickly returned to his bed. 
The next day the bars were found filed in two, 
and the king was made a closer prisoner than 
ever. 

Some months after this, some commissioners 
from Parliament went to see the king, and they 
found him in a most wretched condition. His 
beard was grown, his dress was neglected, his 
health was gone, his hair was gray, and, though 
only forty-eight years of age, he appeared as 
decrepit and infirm as a man of seventy. In 



260 King Charles I. [1648. 

The king's wretched condition. 

fact, he was in a state of misery and despair. 
Even the enemies who came to visit him, 
though usually stern and hard-hearted enough 
to withstand any impressions, were extremely 
affected at the sight. 



1648.] Trial and Death. 261 

The kin? removed to Hurst Castle. Its extraordinary situation. 



Chapter XL 
Trial and Death. 

AS soon as the army party, with Oliver 
Cromwell at their head, had obtained 
complete ascendency, they took immediate 
measures for proceeding vigorously against the 
king. They seized him at Carisbrooke Castle, 
and took him to Hurst Castle, which was a 
gloomy fortress in the neighborhood of Caris- 
brooke. Hurst Castle was in a very extraor- 
dinary situation. There is a long point ex- 
tending from the main land toward the Isle of 
"Wight, opposite to the eastern end of it. This 
point is very narrow, but is nearly two miles 
long. The castle was built at the extremity. 
It consisted of one great round tower, defended 
by walls and bastions. It stood lonely and des- 
olate, surrounded by the sea, except the long 
and narrow neck which connected it with the 
distant shore. Of course, though comfortless 
and solitary, it was a place of much greater se- 
curity than Carisbrooke. 

The circumstance of the king's removal to 



262 King Charles I. 


[1648. 


Another plan of escape. 


Objections. 



this new place of confinement were as fol- 
lows : In some of his many negotiations with 
the Parliament while at Carisbrooke, he had 
bound himself, on certain conditions, not to at- 
tempt to escape from that place. His friends, 
however, when they heard that the army were 
coming again to take him away, concluded 
that he ought to lose no time in making his 
escape out of the country. They proposed the 
plan to the king. He made two objections to 
it. He thought, in the first place, that the at- 
tempt would be very likely to fail ; and that, if 
it did fail, it would exasperate his enemies, and 
make his confinement more rigorous, and his 
probable danger more imminent than ever. 
He said that, in the second place, he had prom- 
ised the Parliament that he would not attempt 
to escape, and that he could not break his word. 
The three friends were silent when they 
heard the king speak these words. After a 
pause, the leader of them, Colonel Cook, said, 
" Suppose I were to tell your majesty that the 
army have a plan for seizing you immediately, 
and that they will be upon you very soon un- 
less you escape. Suppose I tell you that we 
have made all the preparations necessary — that 
we have horses all readv here, concealed in a 



1648.] Trial and Death. 263 

The king's perplexity. He refuses to break his word. 

pent-house — that we have a vessel at the Cows* 
waiting for us — that we are all prepared to at- 
tend you, and eager to engage in the enter- 
prise — the darkness of the night favoring our 
plan, and rendering it almost certain of success. 
Now," added he, " these suppositions express 
the real state of the case, and the only question 
is what your majesty will resolve to do." 

The king paused. He was distressed with 
perplexity and doubt. At length he said, 
" They have promised me, and I have promis- 
ed them, and I will not break the promise first." 
" Your majesty means by they and them, the 
Parliament, I suppose ?" " Yes, I do." " But 
the scene is now changed. The Parliament 
have no longer any power to protect you. The 
danger is imminent, and the circumstances ab- 
solve your majesty from all obligation." 

But the king could not be moved. He said, 
come what may, he would not do any thing 
that looked like a breaking of his word. He 
would dismiss the subject and go to bed, and 

* There were two points or headlands, on opposite sides 
of an inlet from the sea, on the northern side of the Isle of 
Wight, which in ancient times received the name of Cows. 
They were called the East Cow and the West Cow. The 
harbor between them fanned a safe and excellent harbor. 
The name is now spelled Cowes, and the port is, at the pres- 
ent day, of great commercial importance. 



264 King Charles I. [1648. 

Distress of the king's friends. He is removed from Caiisbrooke Castle. 

enjoy his rest as long as he could. His friends 
told him that they feared it would not be long. 
They seemed very much agitated and distress- 
ed. The king asked them why they were so 
much troubled. They said it was to think of 
the extreme danger in which his majesty was 
lying, and his unwillingness to do any thing to 
avert it. The king replied, that if the danger 
were tenfold more than it was, he would not 
break his word to avert it. 

The fears of the king's friends were soon re- 
alized. The next morning, at break of day, he 
was awakened by a loud knocking at his door. 
He sent one of his attendants to inquire what 
it meant. It was a party of soldiers come to 
take him away. They would give him no in- 
formation in respect to their plans, but required 
him to dress himself immediately and go with 
them. They mounted horses at the gate of the 
castle. The king was very earnest to have his 
friends accompany him. They allowed one of 
them, the Duke of Richmond, to go with him 
a little way, and then told him he must return. 
The duke bade his master a very sad and sor- 
rowful farewell, and left him to go on alone. 

The escort which were conducting him took 
him to Hurst Castle. The Parliament passed 



1648.] Trial and Death. 267 

Arrangements for the king's trial. Arbitrary measures of the Commons. 

a vote condemning this proceeding, but it was 
too late. The army concentrated their forces 
about London, took possession of the avenues 
to the houses of Parliament, and excluded all 
those members who were opposed to them. 
The remnant of the Parliament which was 
left immediately took measures for bringing 
the king to trial. 

The House of Commons did not dare to trust 
the trial of the king to the Peers, according to 
the provisions of the English Constitution, and 
so they passed an ordinance for attainting him 
of high treason, and for appointing commission- 
ers, themselves, to try him. Of course, in ap- 
pointing these commissioners, they would name 
such men as they were sure would be predis- 
posed to condemn him. The Peers rejected 
this ordinance, and adjourned for nearly a fort- 
night, hoping thus to arrest any further pro- 
ceedings. The Commons immediately voted 
that the action of the Peers was not necessary, 
and that they would go forward themselves. 
They then appointed the commissioners, and or- 
dered the trial to proceed. 

Every thing connected with the trial was 
conducted with great state and parade. Tho 
number of commissioners constituting the court 



268 King Charles I. [1648. 

The king brought to London. Roll of commissioners. 

was one hundred and thirty-three, though only 
a little more than half that number attended 
the trial. The king had been removed from 
Hurst Castle to Windsor Castle, and he was 
now brought into the city, and lodged in a 
house near to Westminster Hall, so as to be at 
hand. On the appointed day the court assem- 
bled ; the vast hall and all the avenues to it 
were thronged. The whole civilized world 
looked on, in fact, in astonishment at the al- 
most unprecedented spectacle of a king tried 
for his life by an assembly of his subjects. 

The first business after the opening of the 
court was to call the roll of the commissioners, 
that each one might answer to his name. The 
name of the general of the army, Fairfax, who 
was one of the number, was the second upon 
the list. When his name was called there was 
no answer. It was called again. A voice from 
one of the galleries replied, " He has too much 
wit to be here." This produced some disorder, 
and the officers called out to know who an- 
swered in that manner, but there was no reply. 
Afterward, when the impeachment was read, 
the phrase occurred, " Of all the people of En- 
gland," when the same voice rejoined, "No, 
not the half of them." The officers then or- 



1648.] Trial and Death. 269 

The king brought into court. His firmness. 

dered a soldier to fire into the seat from which 
these interruptions came. This command was 
not obeyed, but they found, on investigating 
the case, that the person who had answered 
thus was Fairfax's wife, and they immediately 
removed her from the hall. 

When the court was fully organized, they 
commanded the sergeant-at-arms to bring in the 
prisoner. The king was accordingly brought 
in, and conducted to a chair covered with crim- 
son velvet, which had been placed for him at 
the bar. The judges remained in their seats, 
with their heads covered, while he entered, and 
the king took his seat, keeping his head cover- 
ed too. He took a calm and deliberate survey 
of the scene, looking around upon the judges, 
and upon the armed guards by which he was 
environed, with a stern and unchanging coun- 
tenance. At length silence was proclaimed, 
and the president rose to introduce the proceed- 
ings. 

He addressed the king. He said that the 
Commons of England, deeply sensible of the 
calamities which had been brought upon En- 
gland by the civil war, and of the innocent 
blood which had been shed, and convinced that 
he, the king, had been the guilty cause of it, 

Z2 



270 King Charles I. [1648. 

The charge. The king interrupts its reading. 

were now determined to make inquisition for 
this blood, and to bring him to trial and judg- 
ment ; that they had, for this purpose, organized 
this court, and that he should now hear the 
charge brought against him, which they would 
proceed to try. 

An officer then arose to read the charge. 
The king made a gesture for him to be silent. 
He, however, persisted in his reading, although 
the king once or twice attempted to interrupt 
him. The president, too, ordered him to pro- 
ceed. The charge recited the evils and calam- 
ities which had resulted from the war, and con- 
cluded by saying that " the said Charles Stu- 
art is and has been the occasioner, author, and 
continuer of the said unnatural, cruel, and 
bloody wars, and is therein guilty of all the 
treasons, murders, rapines, burnings, spoils, 
desolations, damages, and mischiefs to this na- 
tion acted and committed in the said wars, or 
occasioned thereby." 

The president then sharply rebuked the king 
for his interruptions to the proceedings, and 
asked him what answer he had to make to the 
impeachment. The king replied by demand- 
ing by what authority they pretended to call 
him to account for his conduct. He told them 



1(548.] Trial and Death. ^71 

The king objects to the jurisdiction of the court. 

that he was their king, and they his subjects ; 
that they were not even the Parliament, and 
that they had no authority from any true Par- 
liament to sit as a court to try him ; that he 
would not betray his own dignity and rights by 
making any answer at all to any charges they 
might bring against him, for that would be an 
acknowledgment of their authority ; but he was 
convinced that there was not one of them who 
did not in his heart believe that he was wholly 
innocent of the charges which they had brought 
against him. 

These proceedings occupied the first day. 
The king was then sent back to his place of 
confinement, and the court adjourned. The 
next day, when called upon to plead to the im- 
peachment, the king only insisted the more 
strenuously in denying the authority of the 
court, and in stating his reasons for so denying 
it. The court were determined not to hear 
what he had to say on this point, and the pres- 
ident continually interrupted him ; while he, 
in his turn, continually interrupted the presi- 
dent too. It was a struggle and a dispute, not 
a trial. At last, on the fourth day, something 
like testimony was produced to prove that the 
king had been in arms against the forces of the 



v 

2v2 Kino Charles I. [1048. 

Sentence of death pronounced against the king. 

Parliament. On the fifth and sixth days, the 
judges sat in private to come to their decision ; 
and on the day following, which was Saturday, 
January 27th, they called the king again be- 
fore them, and opened the doors to admit the 
great assembly of spectators, that the decision 
might be announced. 

There followed another scene of mutual in- 
terruptions and disorder. The king insisted on 
longer delay. He had not said what he wished 
to say in his defense. The president told him 
it was now too late ; that he had consumed the 
time allotted to him in making objections to 
the jurisdiction of the court, and now it was 
too late for his defense. The clerk then read 
the sentence, which ended thus : " For all 
which treasons and crimes this court doth ad- 
judge that he, the said Charles Stuart, is a ty- 
rant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy, and 
shall be put to death by the severing of his 
head from his body." When the clerk had 
finished the reading, the president rose, and 
said deliberately and solemnly, 

" The sentence now read and published is 
the act, sentence, judgment, and resolution of 
the whole court." 

And the whole court rose to express their as- 
sent. 



1648.] Trial and Death. 273 

Tumult. The king grossly insulted. 

The king then said to the president, " Will 
you hear me a word, sir ?" 

President. " Sir, you are not to be heard 
after the sentence." 

King. " Am I not, sir ?" 

President. " No, sir. Guards, withdraw the 
prisoner !" 

King. " I may speak after sentence by your 
favor, sir. Hold — I say, sir — by your favor, 
sir — If I am not permitted to speak — " The 
other parts of his broken attempts to speak 
were lost in the tumult and noise. He was 
taken out of the hall. 

One would have supposed that all who wit- 
nessed these dreadful proceedings, and who now 
saw one who had been so lately the sovereign 
of a mighty empire standing friendless and 
alone on the brink of destruction, would have 
relented at last, and would have found their 
hearts yielding to emotions of pity. But it 
seems not to have been so. The animosities 
engendered by political strife are merciless, and 
the crowd through which the king had to pass 
as he went from the hall scoffed and derided 
him. They blew the smoke of their tobacco in 
his face, and threw their pipes at him. Some 
proceeded to worse indignities than these, but 
18 



274 King Charles I. [1648. 

The king's last requests. They are granted. 

the king bore all with quietness and resigna- 
tion. 

The king was sentenced on Saturday. On 
the evening of that day he sent a request that 
the Bishop of London might be allowed to as- 
sist at his devotions, and that his children 
might be permitted to see him before he was to 
die. There were two of his children then in 
England, his youngest son and a daughter. 
The other two sons had escaped to the Conti- 
nent. The government granted both these re- 
quests. By asking for the services of an Epis- 
copal clergyman, Charles signified his firm de- 
termination to adhere to the very last hour of 
his life to the religious principles which he had 
been struggling for so long. It is somewhat 
surprising that the government were willing to 
comply with the request. 

It was, however, complied with, and Charles 
was taken from the palace of Whitehall, which 
is in Westminster, to the palace of St. James, 
not very far distant. He was escorted by a 
guard through the streets. At St. James's 
there was a small chapel where the king at- 
tended divine service. The Bishop of London 
preached a sermon on the future judgment, in 
which he administered comfort to the mind of 



1648.] Trial and Death. 275 

Devotions of the king. He declines seeing his friends. 

the unhappy prisoner, so far as the sad case al- 
lowed of any comfort, by the thought that all 
human judgments would be reviewed, and all 
wrong made right at the great day. After the 
service the king spent the remainder of the day 
in retirement and private devotion. 

During the afternoon of the day several of 
his most trusty friends among the nobility call- 
ed to see him, but he declined to grant them 
admission. He said that his time was short 
and precious, and that he wished to improve it 
to the utmost in preparation for the great 
change which awaited him. He hoped, there- 
fore, that his friends would not be displeased 
if he declined seeing any persons besides his 
children. It would do no good for them to be 
admitted. All that they could do for him now 
was to pray for him. 

The next day the children were brought to 
him in the room where he was confined. The 
daughter, who was called the Lady Elizabeth, 
was the oldest. He directed her to tell her 
brother James, who was the second son, and 
now absent with Charles on the Continent, that 
he must now, from the time of his father's 
death, no longer look upon Charles as merely 
his older brother, but as his sovereign, and 



276 King Charles I. [1648. 

The king's interview with his children. 

obey him as such ; and he requested her to 
charge them both, from him, to love each oth- 
er, and to forgive their father's enemies. 

"You will not forget this, my dear child, 
will you ?" added the king. The Lady Eliza- 
beth was still very young. 

"No," said she, "I will never forget it as 
long as I live." 

He then charged her with a message to her 
mother, the queen, who was also on the Conti- 
nent. " Tell her," said he, " that I have loved 
her faithfully all my life, and that my tender 
regard for her will not cease till I cease to 
breathe." 

Poor Elizabeth was sadly grieved at this 
parting interview. The king tried to comfort 
her. "You must not be so afflicted for me," 
he said. " It will be a very glorious death that 
I shall die. I die for the laws and liberties of 
this land, and for maintaining the Protestant 
religion. I have forgiven all my enemies, and 
I hope that God will forgive them." 

The little son was, by title, the Duke of 
Gloucester. He took him on his knees, and 
said, in substance, "My dear boy, they are 
going to cut off your father's head." The 
child looked up into his father's face very ear- 



1648.] Trial and Death. 277 

Parting messages. The warrant. 

nestly, not comprehending so strange an asser- 
tion. 

" They are going to cut off my head," re- 
peated the king, " and perhaps they will want 
to make you a king ; but you must not be king 
as long as your brothers Charles and James 
live ; for if you do, very likely they will, some 
time or other, cut off your head." The child 
said, with a very determined air, that then they 
should never make him king as long as he lived. 
The king then gave his children some other 
parting messages for several of his nearest rela- 
tives and friends, and they were taken away. 

In cases of capital punishment, in England 
and America, there must be, after the sentence 
is pronounced, written authority to the sheriff, 
or other proper officer, to proceed to the execu- 
tion of it. This is called the warrant, and is 
usually to be signed by the chief magistrate of 
the state. In England the sovereign always 
signs the warrant of execution ; but in the case 
of the execution of the sovereign himself, which 
was a case entirely unprecedented, the authori- 
ties were at first a little at a loss to know what 
to do. The commissioners who had judged the 
king concluded finally to sign it themselves. 
It was expressed substantially as follows : 

A A 



278 King Charles I. [1648. 

\ 

Warrant signed by the judges. The king sleeps well. 

" At the High Court of Justice for the trying 
and judging of Charles Stuart, king of En- 
gland, January 29th, 1648 : 

" Whereas Charles Stuart, king of England, 
has been convicted, attainted, and condemned 
of high treason, and sentence was pronounced 
against him by this court, to be put to death 
by the severance of his head from his body, of 
which sentence execution yet remaineth to be 
done ; these are, therefore, now to will and re- 
quire you to see the said sentence executed in 
the open street before Whitehall, upon the mor- 
row, being the thirtieth day of this instant 
month of January, between the hours of ten in 
the morning and five in the afternoon of the 
said day, with full effect ; and for so doing this 
shall be your sufficient warrant." 

Fifty-nine of the judges signed this warrant, 
and then it was sent to the persons appointed 
to carry the sentence into execution. 

That night the king slept pretty well for 
about four hours, though during the evening 
before he could hear in his apartment the noise 
of the workmen building the platform, or scaf- 
fold as it was commonly called, on which the 
execution was to take place. He awoke, how- 



1648.] Trial and Death. 279 

Preparations. Reading the service. 

ever, long before day. He called to an attend- 
ant who lay by his bed-side, and requested him 
to get up. " I will rise myself," said he, " for 
I have a great work to do to-day." He then 
requested that they would furnish him with 
the best dress, and an extra supply of under 
clothing, because it was a cold morning. He 
particularly wished to be well guarded from 
the cold, lest it should cause him to shiver, and 
they would suppose that he was trembling from 
fear. 

" I have no fear," said he. " Death is not 
terrible to me. I bless God that I am pre- 
pared." 

The king had made arrangements for divine 
service in his room early in the morning, to be 
conducted by the Bishop of London. The bish- 
op came in at the time appointed, and read the 
prayers. He also read, in the course of the 
service, the twenty-ninth chapter of Matthew, 
which narrates the closing scenes of our Sav- 
iour's life. This was, in fact, the regular les- 
son for the day, according to the Episcopal rit- 
ual, which assigns certain portions of Scripture 
to every day of the year. The king supposed 
that the bishop had purposely selected this pas- 
sage, and he thanked him for it, as he said it 



280 King Charles I. [1648. 

Summons. The long carried to Whitehall. 

seemed to him very appropriate to the occasion. 
" May it please your majesty," said the bishop, 
"it is the proper lesson for the day." The 
king was much affected at learning this fact, 
as he considered it a special providence, indi- 
cating that he was prepared to die, and that he 
should be sustained in the final agony. 

About ten o'clock, Colonel Hacker, who was 
the first one named in the warrant of execu- 
tion of the three persons to whom the warrant 
was addressed, knocked gently at the king's 
chamber door. No answer was returned. Pres- 
ently he knocked again. The king asked his 
attendant to go to the door. He went, and 
asked Colonel Hacker why he knocked. He 
replied that he wished to see the king 

" Let him come in," said the king. 

The officer entered, but with great embar- 
rassment and trepidation. He felt that he had 
a most awful duty to perform. He informed 
the king that it was time to proceed to White- 
hall, though he could have some time there for 
rest. " Very well," said the king ; " go on ; I 
will follow." The king then took the bishop's 
arm, and they went along together. 

They found, as they issued from the palace 
of St. James into the park through which their 



1648.] Trial and Death. 2«1 

Devotions. Parting scenes. 

way lay to Whitehall, that lines of soldiers had 
been drawn up. The king, with the bishop on 
one side, and the attendant before referred to, 
whose name was Herbert, on the other, both 
uncovered, walked between these lines of 
guards. The king walked on very fast, so that 
the others scarcely kept pace with him. When 
he arrived at Whitehall he spent some further 
time in devotion with the bishop, and then, at 
noon, he ate a little bread and drank some light 
wine. Soon after this, Colonel Hacker, the offi- 
cer, came to the door and let them know that 
the hour had arrived. 

The bishop and Hacker melted into tears as 
they bade their master farewell. The king di- 
rected the door to be opened, and requested the 
officer to go on, saying that he would follow. 
They went through a large hall, called the ban- 
queting hall, to a window in front, through 
which a passage had been made for the king to 
his scaffold, which was built up in the street 
before the palace. As the king passed out 
through the window, he perceived that a vast 
throng of spectators had assembled in the 
streets to witness the spectacle. He had ex- 
pected this, and had intended to address them. 
But he found that this was impossible, as the 

Aa2 



282 King Charles I. [1648. 

The king's speech. His composure. Death. 

space all around the scaffold was occupied with 
troops of horse and bodies of soldiers, so as to 
keep the populace at so great a distance that 
they could not hear his voice. He, however, 
made his speech, addressing it particularly to 
one or two persons who were near, knowing 
that they would put the substance of it on rec- 
ord, and thus make it known to all mankind. 
There was then some further conversation 
about the preparations for the final blow, the 
adjustment of the dress, the hair, &c, in which 
the king took an active part, with great com- 
posure. He then kneeled down and laid his 
head upon the block. 

The executioner, who wore a mask that he 
might not be known, began to adjust the hair 
of the prisoner by putting it up under his cap, 
when the king, supposing that he was going to 
strike, hastily told him to wait for the sign. 
The executioner said that he would. The king 
spent a few minutes in prayer, and then 
stretched out his hands, which was the sign 
which he had arranged to give. The axe de- 
scended. The dissevered head, with the blood 
streaming from it, was held up by the assistant 
executioner, for the gratification of the vast 
crowd which was gazing on the scene. He 



1648.] Trial and Death. 283 

The body taken to Windsor Castle. The Commonwealth. 

said, as he raised it, " Behold the head of a 
traitor !" 

The body was placed in a coffin covered with 
black velvet, and taken back through the 
window into the room from which the mon- 
arch had walked out, in life and health, but a 
few moments before. A day or two afterward 
it was taken to Windsor Castle upon a hearse 
drawn by six horses, and covered with black 
velvet. It was there interred in a vault in the 
chapel, with an inscription upon lead over the 
coffin: 

KING CHARLES. 

1648. 

After the death of Charles, a sort of republic 
was established in England, called the Com- 
monwealth, over which, instead of a king, Oli- 
ver Cromwell presided, under the title of Pro- 
tector. The country was, however, in a very 
anomalous and unsettled state. It became 
more distracted still after the death of the Pro- 
tector, and it was only twelve years after be- 
heading the father that the people of England, 
by common consent, called back the son to the 
throne. It seems as if there could be no stable 
government in a country where any very large 



284 King Charles I. [1648. 

Government in the United States. Ownership. 

portion of the inhabitants are destitute of prop- 
erty, without the aid of that mysterious but all- 
controlling principle of the human breast, a 
spirit of reverence for the rights, and dread of 
the power of an hereditary crown. In the Unit- 
ed States almost every man is the possessor of 
property. He has his house, his little farm, 
his shop and implements of labor, or something 
which is his own, and which he feels would be 
jeopardized by revolution and anarchy. He 
dreads a general scramble, knowing that he 
would probably get less than he would lose by 
it. He is willing, therefore, to be governed by 
abstract law. There is no need of holding up 
before him a scepter or a crown to induce obe- 
dience. He submits without them. He votes 
with the rest, and then abides by the decision 
of the ballot-box. In other countries, however, 
the case is different. If not an actual majori- 
ty, there is at least a very large proportion of 
the community who possess nothing. They get 
scanty daily food for hard and long-continued 
daily labor ; and as change, no matter what, is 
always a blessing to sufferers, or at least is al- 
ways looked forward to as such, they are ready 
to welcome, at all times, any thing that prom- 
ises commotion. A war, a conflagration, a 



1648.] Trial and Death. 285 

No stable governments result from violent revolutions. 

riot, or a rebellion, is always welcome. They 
do not know but that they shall gain some ad- 
vantage by it, and in the mean time the excite- 
ment of it is some relief to the dead and eter- 
nal monotony of toil and suffering. 

It is true that the revolutions by which mon- 
archies are overturned are not generally effect- 
ed, in the first instance, by this portion of the 
community. The throne is usually overturn- 
ed at first by a higher class of men ; but the 
deed being done, the inroad upon the establish- 
ed course and order of the social state being 
once made, this lower mass is aroused and ex- 
cited by it, and soon becomes unmanageable. 
When property is so distributed among the pop- 
ulation of a state that all have an interest in 
the preservation of order, then, and not till then, 
will it be safe to give to all a share in the pow- 
er necessary for preserving it ; and, in the mean 
time, revolutions produced by insurrections and 
violence will probably only result in establish- 
ing governments unsteady and transient just in 
proportion to the suddenness of their origin. 



The End. 



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